THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


BOOKS  BY  JOHN  SPARGO 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
BOLSHEVISM 

BOLSHEVISM 

SOCIAL    DEMOCRACY 
EXPLAINED 

AMERICANISM     AND 
SOCIAL    DEMOCRACY 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    Publishers 

NEW    YORK   AND    LONDON 


The  Psychology  of 
Bolshevism 


By 

JOHN  SPARGO 


Author  of 

•BOLSHEVISM,"  "SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  EXPLAINED, 

"AMERICANISM  AND  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY," 

ETC. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  BOLSHEVISM 


Copyright.  1919,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  December,  1919 


PREFACE 

In  this  little  volume  I  have  attempted  to 
explain  the  psychology  of  that  great  move- 
ment of  impassioned  discontent  and  violent 
revolution  which,  because  of  its  rapid  de- 
velopment in  Russia,  and  because  of  the  im- 
petus it  has  received  from  its  terrible  pre- 
eminence in  that  unfortunate  country,  we  call 
Bolshevism, 

Revolutionary  Communism  is  a  menace  to 
civilization.  It  is  an  ironic  fact,  providing 
food  for  deep  and  serious  thought,  that  the  end 
of  the  great  world  war  has  brought  mankind 
not  peace,  but  only  a  more  difficult  and  serious 
conflict.  The  Peace  Treaty  signed  at  Ver- 
sailles remarkable  as  documentary  historical 
evidence  of  the  complete  failure  of  the  most 
ambitious  and  arrogant  militarist  scheme  in 
history — does  not  really  mark  the  return  of 
peace  to  a  war-weary  world,  but  a  new  align- 
ment of  mankind  for  a  war  even  more  ter- 
rible. Every  organized  nation,  with  its  cul- 
ture, its  laws,  its  arts,  and  its  institutions — its 
civilization,  in  a  word — is  menaced  by  a  new 
form  of  despotism  and  terrorism. 

In  country  after  country  we  find  large 
masses  of  people  ready  to  revolt  against  the 


P  R  E  F  A  CE 

existing  social  order,  and  to  establish  by  the 
relentless  and  unscrupulous  use  of  brute  force 
a  despotism  more  formidable  than  anything 
ever  attempted  by  Hapsburg.  Hohenzollern, 
or  Romanov.  Like  these  and  all  their  pred- 
ecessors, the  creators  of  the  new  tyranny 
make  fair  promises  of  ultimate  freedom,  well- 
being,  and  happiness.  But  in  their  ex- 
periment upon  the  living  body  of  human  so- 
ciety they  would  destroy  the  institutions  and 
the  usages  which  alone  can  make  possible  the 
orderly  development  of  humanity  toward  a 
self-chosen  ideal. 

If  we  are  to  overcome  this  new  peril,  if 
civilization  is  to  be  preserved,  we  must  under- 
stand not  only  the  program  but  the  spirit  and 
the  mental  processes  which  have  de- 
veloped the  program.  What  are  the  ex- 
periences which  have  led  so  many  of  the 
toilers  to  see  no  hope  except  in  this  terrible 
experiment?  What  are  the  sources  of  their 
grim  despair  and  of  their  irrational  hopes? 
And  what  makes  men  and  women  of  educa- 
tion and  sincere  democratic  idealism,  men 
and  women  who  might  well  be  expected  to 
appreciate  the  great  danger  to  all  that  is  best 
in  civilization,  accept  the  Bolshevist  program 
as  a  panacea  for  the  ills  of  mankind,  contrary 
to  all  the  lessons  of  human  experience? 


PREFACE 

To  these  and  kindred  questions  I  have  tried 
to  give  the  answer  in  uncompromising  candor 
and  plain  and  forthright  language.  I  have 
no  pet  theories  to  promulgate,  nor  any  in- 
terest other  than  to  assist  in  making  Bolshev- 
ism understood  in  order  that  it  may  be  in- 
telligently combatted.  It  cannot  be  charged 
against  me  that  I  am  satisfied  with  existing 
social  arrangements,  or  that  I  lack  sympathy 
with  the  desire  to  bring  about  radical,  and 
even  revolutionary,  changes  in  society.  Dur- 
ing many  years  I  have  devoted  such  gifts  as 
I  possess  to  the  work  of  convincing  my  fel- 
low citizens  of  the  need  for  a  thorough  re- 
organization of  our  economic  life. 

My  studies  of  the  social  problem  long  ago 
convinced  me  that  the  socialization  of  the 
economic  life  must  depend  ultimately  upon 
the  socialization  of  human  thought  and  char- 
acter. Anti-social  conduct,  whether  on  the 
part  of  individuals  or  masses,  can  never  ad- 
vance genuine  Socialism.  No  social  state  can 
be  stronger  than  its  human  foundations.  Only 
men  and  women  whose  lives  are  governed  by 
social  consciousness  can  build  and  maintain 
a  truly  socialized  society.  Bolshevism  is 
wrong  because  it  is  anti-social,  because  its 
ideals  and  its  methods  are  as  selfish  and 
tyrannical  as  those  of  unrestrained  capitalism, 


PREFACE 

or  even  those  of  Czarism  itself.  It  emulates 
the  worst  and  most  oppressive  policies  of  past 
oppression  to  bring  about  future  freedom. 

In  analyzing  the  various  types  of  men  and 
women  who  become  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  Bolshevism  I  have  had  the  advantage  of 
an  extensive  acquaintance  with  a  very  large 
number  of  men  and  women,  belonging  to 
widely  differing  social  groups,  who  are  either 
intense  Bolsheviki  or  belong  to  the  large  class 
of  near-Bolsheviki.  I  could  easily  have  fol- 
lowed the  "case"  method  and  given  detailed 
descriptions  of  many  individuals  to  illustrate 
each  group  or  category.  That  method,  how- 
ever, while  admirable  in  many  respects,  par- 
ticularly for  the  use  of  specialists,  would  have 
had  the  great  disadvantage  of  limiting  the  ap- 
peal of  the  book  to  a  relatively  small  circle  of 
readers.  By  setting  forth  my  views  in  the 
present  form  I  hope  to  assist  a  larger  number 
of  readers  to  a  better  understanding  of  the 
Bolshevist  menace. 

•  My  thanks  are  due  to  the  editors  of  the 
World's  Work,  the  New  York  Evening  Post, 
and  the  Christian  Century,  of  Chicago,  for 
their  courteous  permission  to  use  material 
previously  published  in  their  pages. 

JOHN  SPARGO. 

"NESTLEDOWN,"  OLD  BENNINGTON,  VERMONT. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
BOLSHEVISM 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF 
BOLSHEVISM 


I. 


GREAT  mass  movements,  whether  these 
be  religious  or  political,  are,  at  first, 
always  difficult  to  understand.  Invariably 
they  challenge  existing  moral  and  intellectual 
values,  the  revaluation  of  which  is,  for  the 
normal  mind,  an  exceedingly  difficult  and 
painful  task.  Moreover,  the  definition  of 
their  aims  and  policies  into  exact  and  com- 
prehensible programs  is  generally  slowly 
achieved.  At  their  inception,  and  during  the 
early  stages  of  their  development,  there  must 
needs  be  many  crude  and  tentative  statements 
and  many  rhetorical  exaggerations.  It  is  safe 
to  assert  as  a  rule  that  at  no  stage  of  its  his- 
tory can  a  great  movement  of  the  masses  be 
fully  understood  and  fairly  interpreted  by  a 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

study  of  its  formal  statements  and  authentic 
expositions  only.  These  must  be  supple- 
mented by  careful  study  of  the  psychology  of 
the  men  and  women  whose  ideals  and  yearn- 
ings these  statements  and  expositions  aim  to 
represent.  It  is  not  enough  to  know  and  com- 
prehend the  creed :  it  is  essential  that  we  also 
know  and  comprehend  the  spiritual  factors, 
the  discontent,  the  hopes,  the  fears,  the  in- 
articulate visionings  of  the  human  units  in  the 
movement.  This  is  of  greater  importance  in 
the  initial  stages  than  later,  when  the  articula- 
tion of  the  soul  of  the  movement  has  become 
more  certain  and  clear. 

It  is  not  at  all  difficult  to  understand  the 
main  features  of  the  Bolshevist  creed,  as  these 
have  been  formulated  in  many  languages  by 
leaders  of  the  movement  in  many  lands.  The 
outlines  of  the  creed  are  fairly  firm  and  clear, 
though  there  are,  naturally,  many  gaps  and 
many  crudities.  Many  problems  have  been 
evaded,  many  have  not  even  been  recognized, 
while  many  more  have  been  only  tentatively 
and  fearfully  approached.  Nevertheless,  the 
outlines  are  impressively  clear.  They  are 
quite  easy  to  understand,  because  there  is  so 
little  in  them  that  is  not  so  familiar  as  to  be 
commonplace.  Neither  in  principle  nor  in 

2 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

policy  does  Bolshevism  present  anything  of 
material  consequence  that  is  original,  or  that 
cannot  be  found  amply  and  explicitly  stated 
in  the  voluminous  literature  of  Socialism, 
Anarchism,  and  Syndicalism  which  antedated 
the  emergence  of  the  Bolsheviki  from  Rus- 
sia's chaos  with  their  sinister  challenge  to 
civilization.  Lenine,  the  foremost  theorist  of 
the  Bolsheviki,  the  only  one  thus  far  to  com- 
mand serious  intellectual  attention,  is  by  no 
means  a  great  original  thinker.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  would  be  extremely  difficult  to  name 
any  writer  who  ever  attained  anything  like 
such  intellectual  eminence  and  prestige  whose 
writings  were  so  absolutely  unoriginal.  His 
theoretical  ideas,  together  with  his  statement 
of  them,  he  takes  from  Marx.  Marxian  gen- 
eralizations, in  Marxian  phraseology,  consti- 
tute the  whole  of  his  philosophical  equipment. 
Even  in  the  domain  of  political  practice  he 
is  altogether  bereft  of  originality  and  in- 
ventiveness, his  practical  program  and  tactical 
policy  being  slavishly  copied. 

If  this  critical  estimate  detracts  somewhat 
from  the  glamor  which  has  lately  surrounded 
this  strange  figure,  and  from  the  homage 
which  even  his  bitterest  critics  have  paid  to 
the  first  statesman  of  Syndicalist-Communism, 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

it  at  the  same  time  adds  impressiveness  to  his 
position,  and  to  him  as  a  symbol  of  a  great 
challenging  power.  It  is  precisely  because 
he  has  announced  no  new  ideas  or  ideals,  but 
has  confined  himself  to  familiar  principles, 
stated  in  the  most  orthodox  Socialist  language, 
that  he  has  so  easily  won  so  great  a  following. 
New  and  radically  novel  ideas  spread  very 
slowly:  the  human  mind  is  innately  con- 
servative and  slow  to  abandon  old  ideas  and 
ideals  for  new  ones.  This  is  especially  true 
when  the  old  ideas  form  the  credo  of  a  sect, 
school,  cult,  or  party.  The  more  passionate 
and  ardent  the  loyalty  in  any  of  these,  the 
more  intensified  the  emotional  factors,  the 
more  determined  is  the  resistance  to  new 
ideas  and  the  more  fanatical  the  sense  of 
orthodoxy.  The  early  and  enthusiastic  stages 
of  every  religion  have  been  the  most  dogmatic 
and  intolerant.  These  are  the  reasons  why 
radicals  and  radical  movements  are  prover- 
bially intolerant,  sticklers  for  orthodoxy, 
given  to  heresy-hunting,  and  slow  to  accept 
changes. 

Had  Lenine  renounced  the  old  Marxian 
theories  and  shibboleths  and  sought  to  sub- 
stitute for  them  new  and  unfamiliar  theories 
and  shibboleths,  he  would  not  have  found  fol- 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

lowers  in  large  numbers  for  a  long  time.  They 
would  have  come  slowly,  one  by  one,  and, 
even  so,  it  would  have  required  a  genius  he 
has  given  no  indication  of  possessing,  to  stir 
the  interest  and  arrest  the  serious  attention  of 
mankind.  His  strength,  and  therefore,  his 
menace,  rests  altogether  upon  his  utter  lack 
of  originality,  his  orthodoxy.  His  appeal  in- 
volved no  keen  intellectual  or  spiritual  strug- 
gle on  the  part  of  those  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed. To  savagely  desperate  men  who 
were  in  a  mood  to  destroy  he  preached  active 
destruction.  He  did  not  call  upon  them  to 
abandon  any  cherished  article  of  faith,  to  open 
any  closed  chambers  in  their  minds,  to  re- 
ceive any  new  doctrines.  He  did  not  say  to 
them:  "What  Marx  and  his  immediate  dis- 
ciples taught  us  long  ago  no  longer  holds 
good;  we  must  abandon  it  and  revise  our 
creed  in  accordance  with  new  conditions,  new 
knowledge,  and  new  needs."  Had  he  done 
that,  however  brilliantly,  he  would  have  had 
to  contend  against  the  immense  resistance  to 
change  common  to  every  "ism"  and  nowhere 
stronger  than  in  the  Socialist  movement. 
Choosing  the  line  of  least  resistance,  he  rested 
his  appeal  for  destruction  upon  the  orthodox 

faith  of  his  Socialist  comrades,  appealing  to 

2  s 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

them  in  this  sense:  "Marx  long  ago  showed 
the  way  we  must  go.  Nothing  can  change  the 
truth.  Those  who  urge  us  to  change  are  all 
false  prophets.  Loyalty  to  the  old  faith  alone 
can  bring  victory." 

Unless  wt  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  its 
intellectual  appeal  professes  to  rest  upon  the 
authoritative  traditions  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment, that  Lenine  depends  for  intellectual 
authority  upon  the  intellectual  authority  of 
Marx,  we  shall  never  be  able  to  understand 
the  rapid  and  world-wide  spread  of  the  creed 
of  Bolshevism.  Yet,  paradoxically,  Bolshev- 
ism and  Marxian  Socialism  have  little  in 
common,  and  between  the  teachings  of  Marx 
and  those  of  Lenine  there  is  little  likeness. 
What  Lenine  presents  in  the  name  of  Marx 
is  a  caricature  of  Marx's  real  thought.  The 
name  and  the  words  of  Marx  are  often  upon 
his  lips,  but  the  essential  spirit  of  Marx  is 
absent. 

Here,  too,  we  have  a  phenomenon  that  is 
familiar  enough  in  the  psychology  of  pop- 
ular movements.  In  practice  orthodoxy 
rarely  conforms  to  the  pattern.  The  formula- 
tions carefully  made  by  great  theologians  be- 
come the  nominal  theology  of  a  sect  or  church, 
but  the  actual  working  theology  is  nearly  al- 

6 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

ways  quite  different.  It  is  conceived  upon  a 
lower  intellectual  plane.  The  master-minds 
are  reflected  by  the  lesser  minds,  but  much  is 
changed  in  the  process.  Phrases  and  formulae 
are  retained  and  tiresomely  repeated,  but  their 
original  values  are  modified  or  altogether  lost. 
The  everyday  theology  thus  becomes  a 
caricature  of  the  nominal  theology.  In  the 
same  way,  Lenine  and  his  followers  have 
evolved  a  caricature  of  the  Marxian  teach- 
ings they  profess  to  follow. 

This  is  illustrated  by  the  cardinal  feature 
of  Bolshevist  policy — the  attempt  to  establish 
that  form  of  class  rule  called  the  "Dictator- 
ship  of  the  Proletariat."  Seventy-two  years 
ago,  November,  1847,  in  formulating  a 
"theoretical  and  working  program"  for  the 
Socialist  movement  of  the  time,  Marx  pre- 
dicted that  in  the  course  of  the  evolution  to  a 
higher  state  of  society,  the  existing  struggle 
between  the  capitalist  class  and  the  working 
class,  the  latter,  which  he  called  the  pro- 
letariat, would  become  the  masters  of  society. 
Triumphant,  this  class  would  set  up,  he  pre- 
dicted, a  dictatorship — the  Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat.  Because  of  this  prediction  by 
Marx,  Lenine  and  his  followers  claim  that 
they  are  the  true  and  orthodox  exemplars  of 

7 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

Marx's  teachings  when  they  try  to  set  up,  in 
the  conditions  existing  to-day,  something  that 
they  call  a  proletarian  dictatorship.  Lenine 
makes  no  claim  to  originality. 


II. 


Since  we  are  not  concerned  here  to  vindicate 
Marx,  it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  facts  of  historical  develop- 
ment belied  the  forecast.  Like  many  another 
nineteenth  century  forecaster,  Marx  fared 
badly  enough  in  the  twentieth  century.  Our 
concern  is  not  with  nineteenth  century  fore- 
casts, but  with  twentieth  century  realities.  It 
is  only  because  Lenine  and  his  co-conspirators 
have  been  and  are  supported  by  many  Social- 
ists who,  confounded  by  phrases,  believe 
that  the  wretched  bureaucratic  dictatorships 
set  up  by  Lenine  and  his  followers  are  what 
Marx  had  in  mind,  that  it  is  worth  while  to 
point  out  how  far  this  is  from  the  truth. 

Marx  was  strongly  influenced  by  Barnave 
and  other  intellectuals  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  used  the  term  "proletariat"  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  was  used  by  them.  So  used, 
it  connotes  something  more  than  poverty, 

8 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

namely,  a  contemptible  position  in  society,  lit- 
tle better  than  serfdom,  including  lack  of  the 
rights  of  citizenship.  In  Roman  society  the 
term  was  applied  to  a  large  class,  held  in  con- 
tempt, including  peasants,  wage-laborers  and 
all  others  without  capital,  property,  or  as- 
sured means  of  support,  regarded  as  contrib- 
uting only  proles — offspring — to  the  wealth 
of  the  State  and  unfit  and  unworthy  to  ex- 
ercise political  rights.1  The  proletarian  es- 
tate was  not  poverty  merely,  but  poverty  plus 
political  disfranchisement.  The  greater  part 
of  our  working-class,  except  the  unnaturalized 
alien  workers,  is  not  proletarian  at  all  in  the 
strict  Marxian  sense. 

When  Marx  wrote  his  famous  Communist 
Manifesto  the  growing  wage-working  class 
was  almost  universally  proletarian  in  this 
sense.  Neither  in  England  nor  in  any  coun- 
try of  continental  Europe  did  the  wage- 
earners  as  a  class  enjoy  the  franchise  and  di- 
rect parliamentary  representation.  It  was  not 
until  many  years  later  that  the  working-classes 
obtained  the  right  of  suffrage  and  their 
spokesmen  appeared  in  the  parliaments.  In 

*One  learned  modern  philologist  suggests  that  the  word 
"proletarian"  is  derived  from  pro-oletarius — manure-worker, 
hence  a  person  of  low  and  degraded  estate. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

1847,  that  degree  of  emancipation  did  not  ap- 
pear within  the  limits  of  practical  politics. 
At  that  time  and  for  long  afterward  Marx 
had  no  vision  of  the  great  amelioration  of  the 
condition  of  the  working-class  to  be  brought 
about  through  electoral  reform,  social  legis- 
lation, successful  trades-unionism,  and  other 
agencies.  He  believed  that  a  development 
the  exact  opposite  of  that  which  took  place 
was  inevitable.  His  theory  of  an  eventual 
proletarian  dictatorship  rested  upon,  and  was 
inseparable  from,  his  belief  that  the  mass  of 
mankind  was  doomed  to  proletarianization; 
that  the  inexorable  laws  of  capitalist  develop- 
ment condemned  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  civilized  mankind  to  ever  increasing 
misery,  and,  finally,  to  proletarian  degrada- 
tion. 

•It  was  a  grim  tragedy  that  he  sketched: 
An  ever  diminishing  class  of  exploiters  grow- 
ing richer  and  richer;  an  ever  growing  class 
of  exploited  growing  poorer  and  poorer.  No 
humane  instinct  or  sense  on  the  part  of  the 
rulers  to  lessen  the  brutality  of  the  process, 
nor  any  state  craft  free  to  check  it.  Finally, 
when  the  overwhelming  majority  of  people 
reached  the  uttermost  limit  of  endurable 

misery,  then,  and  then  only,  would  occur  the 

10 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

inevitable  cataclysm,  the  irresistible  revolt  of 
the  many  against  the  few.  In  that  great  hour 
of  retribution,  Marx  believed,  the  victorious 
proletariat,  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
mankind,  would  establish  the  "Dictatorship 
of  the  Proletariat,"  ruling  instead  of  being 
ruled.  Ultimately,  Marx  believed,  as  Lenine 
now  does,  this  class  oppression  would  cease, 
and  in  place  of  classes  a  fraternal  co-operative 
democracy  be  realized.  But  first  of  all  must 
come  the  revolution  itself  and  then  the  pro- 
letarian dictatorship,  this  to  be  continued  long 
enough  to  enable  the  proletariat  "to  abolish 
itself  as  proletariat" — to  use  the  cryptic 
phrase  of  Engels — that  is  to  say,  to  abolish 
the  degrading  conditions  which  make  pro- 
letarians of  the  workers,  to  reconstruct  the 
social  order. 

Obviously,  there  is  only  a  nominal  relation- 
ship between  this  theory  of  rule  by  an  im- 
mense majority  and  the  wretched  despotism 
of  a  small  minority  which  Lenine  and  his  col- 
leagues have  imposed  upon  Russia's  millions, 
or  the  like  tyranny  of  the  few  over  the  many 
which  the  Spartacists  sought  to  set  up  in  Ger- 
many. Whatever  we  may  think  of  Marx's 
theory,  which  he  himself  abandoned,  be  it 

observed,  it  cannot  by  any  rational  process  be 

11 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

interpreted  to  cover  these  grotesque  Utopias 
of  despotism.  These  latter  are  related  rather 
to  the  pre-Marxian  conspiracies  to  set  up  the 
dictatorship  of  militant  minorities,  from 
Robespierre  to  Blanqui.  During  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  he  was  in  constant  conflict  with 
the  advocates  of  such  conspiracies. 


III. 


The  philosophy  of  the  Russian  Communist 
leader,  whose  influence,  especially  outside  of 
Russia,  is  so  largely  derived  from  his  appeal 
to  Marxian  orthodoxy,  is  essentially  pre- 
Marxian  and  anti-Marxian.  It  is  not  so  sur- 
prising after  all  that  so  many  of  the  orthodox 
followers  of  Marx  have  failed  to  perceive 
this,  and  have  accepted  Lenine  at  his  own 
valuation.  The  writings  of  Marx  are  dif- 
ficult reading.  Like  the  Bible,  they  are  far 
oftener  referred  to  and  quoted  than  read. 
Only  an  infinitesimal  minority  of  those  who 
call  themselves  Marxian  Socialists  have  ever 
studied  Marx  at  first  hand.  Few  possess  the 
intellectual  training  necessary  for  such  a 
study.  The  great  majority  know  only  a  few 
isolated  texts.  They  know  Marx  only  through 

popular  written  and  oral  expositions,  many  of 

12 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

which  are  very  crude  and  very  far  from  ac- 
curately representing  the  thought  of  Marx. 
In  other  words,  the  actual  working  theology 
of  the  Marxian  sect  differs  radically  from  its 
nominal  theology,  being  conceived  on  a  lower 
intellectual  plane.  It  is  significant  that,  with 
only  one  exception,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  discover,  every  recognized  Marxian  scholar 
in  the  Socialist  movement  of  every  country, 
including  Russia,  has  denounced  and  com- 
batted  Bolshevism.  The  exception  is  Nikolai 
Lenine.  ,  , 

We  encounter  here  a  psychological  fact  of 
very  great  importance,  namely,  that  the 
restraints  implicit  in  Marx's  teachings  are, 
unfortunately,  inoperative  so  far  as  a  very 
numerous  body  of  his  professed  followers  are 
concerned.  Lacking  the  education  and  the 
mental  training  requisite  for  a  full  under- 
standing of  the  Marxian  system,  they  are  at 
all  times  mentally  ready  to  condone,  and, 
under  favorable  conditions,  to  attempt,  that 
conspiratory  form  of  agitation  and  struggle 
against  which  the  Marxian  system  is  es- 
sentially directed.  This  was  the  case  even 
while  Marx  was  alive  and  active  in  the  inter- 
national Socialist  movement.  Again  and 

again  he  found  himself  engaged  in  bitter  con- 
is 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

flict  with  individuals  and  factions  in  the 
movement  who  were  advocating  policies  not 
materially  different  from  those  of  the  Bolshev- 
ist conspiracies  of  these  latter  days.  These 
conflicts  threw  into  strong  relief  the  complete 
dependence  of  the  social  revolution  as  Marx 
conceived  it  upon  a  long  evolutionary  proc- 
ess. Thus,  in  1850,  in  the  Communist  league, 
for  which  the  famous  Manifesto  was  written, 
there  arose  a  faction  in  the  Central  Commit- 
tee which  wanted  "revolutionary  action"  and 
an  immediate  attempt  to  capture  the  reins  of 
government  by  some  daring  coup  de  surprise 
and  set  up  proletarian  dictatorships.  Against 
these  impatient  Hotspurs  Marx  stoutly  con- 
tended that,  far  from  being  ready  to  institute 
a  new  social  order,  it  would  take  the  workers 
a  long  time,  possibly  fifty  years,  not  to  change 
society  to  their  ideal,  but  to  fit  themselves  for 
political  power.  With  infinite  scorn  he  de- 
nounced the  "revolutionary  phrase-mongers" 
and  their  silly  flattery  of  the  proletariat. 

It  has  been  observed  that  in  every  uprising 
the  leaders  of  the  Bolsheviki  have  manifested 
greater  bitterness  toward  the  non-Bolshevik 
Socialists  than  toward  either  capitalists  or  the 
political  upholders  of  the  old  regime.  This 
is  entirely  logical  and  consistent.  No  political 

14 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

philosophy,  no  theory  of  society,  no  system  of 
industrial  organization,  accepted  by  the  up- 
holders of  capitalist  society,  is  so  diamet- 
rically and  irreconcilably  opposed  to  Bolshev- 
ism as  modern  Socialism  when  properly 
understood.  The  more  developed  the  Socialist 
movement  is,  the  closer  its  contact  with  reality 
and,  consequently,  the  clearer  its  perception 
of  its  responsibilities,  the  more  bitter  the  con- 
flict with  Bolshevism  becomes.  Here  in  the 
United  States,  where  Socialism  is  an  insignif- 
icant political  force  as  yet,  where,  as  the  lead- 
ing organ  of  the  party  has  said,  there  are  many 
districts  in  which  elephants  are  more  nu- 
merous than  Socialists,  this  conflict  is  mainly 
rhetorical  and  academic.  But  in  Russia  and 
Germany  it  inevitably  assumed  the  character 
of  civil  war. 

The  reconstruction  of  society  upon  a  Social- 
ist basis  is  a  very  formidable  program.  Its 
realization  must,  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions  imaginable,  take  a  great  many 
years.  Indeed,  it  must  take  many  years  to 
make  any  appreciable  structural  changes  in 
the  social  organization.  Society  cannot  be 
socialized  faster  or  farther  than  the  human 
units  of  which  it  is  composed  are  socialized. 
Social  forms  and  institutions  change  very 

15 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

slowly  in  response  to  propaganda  and  ideal- 
istic forces.  Only  under  the  impact  of  great 
economic  developments  do  they  change  with 
relative  rapidity.  Even  so,  the  relative 
rapidity  of  such  changes  is  painfully  slow 
when  measured  in  terms  of  the  duration  of  an 
individual  human  life.  A  short  speech  by  a 
convincing  speaker,  an  epigram,  or  a  cleverly 
written  leaflet,  may  completely  change  the 
character  and  direction  of  a  man's  thinking 
and  result  in  his  commitment  to  a  program 
too  far-reaching  to  be  completely  realized  in 
fifty  or  even  a  hundred  years.  It  is  not  strange, 
but  perfectly  natural,  that  many  men  and 
women  find  the  tax  upon  their  patience  and 
their  fate  too  severe  and  fall  victims  to  po- 
litical despair  or  to  the  blandishments  of 
those  who  profess  to  have  discovered  shorter 
routes  to  the  goal.  Get-rich-quick  schemes 
depend  for  their  success  upon  the  same  hu- 
man weakness  of  impatience,  the  desire  for 
twelve  o'clock  at  eleven. 

Naturally,  where  the  Socialist  propaganda 
results  in  a  strong  organization  which  suc- 
ceeds in  effecting  substantial  reforms  faith  is 
more  easily  sustained  and  there  is  less  despair- 
ing doubt,  less  temptation  to  heed  the  allure- 
ments of  the  purveyors  of  social  quack 

16 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

nostrums,  than  where  the  agitation  brings  no 
tangible  gains.  The  political  sterility  of  the 
American  Socialist  movement,  its  complete 
failure  to  become  a  positive  force  for  the 
progressive  advancement  of  the  democratic 
Socialist  program,  and  the  unfortunate  policy 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  to 
which  more  than  anything  else  is  due  the  ab- 
sence of  anything  like  a  Labor  party  in  this 
country,  must  be  counted  among  the  most  re- 
grettable circumstances  of  our  present  day 
political  life.  They  are  responsible  for  a  very 
large  part  of  the  political  despair  and  be- 
wilderment which  is  the  working  capital  of 
Anarchism,  Syndicalism,  Bolshevism,  and 
their  variants. 

The  obvious  domination  of  our  politics  and 
government  by  the  capitalist  interests  in- 
evitably contributes  to  the  same  result.  Labor's 
indictment  is  not  to  be  dismissed  lightly. 
Legislation  for  the  protection  of  the  workers 
lags  far  behind  the  enlightened  consciousness 
of  mankind ;  legislatures  are  far  more  quickly 
responsive  to  the  demands  of  capital;  the 
executive  forces  of  government  operate  with 
the  same  discrimination.  Something  very 
close  to  a  plutocratic  dictatorship  has  long  ex- 

17 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

isted  and  has  done  much  to  foster  the  desire 
for  a  proletarian  dictatorship. 


IV. 


It  has  been  cynically  observed  that  most 
men  learn  nothing  from  history  except  the  fact 
that  they  learn  nothing  from  history.  The 
Lenines,  Trotzkys,  and  Bela  Kims  can  hardly 
be  said  to  have  learned  even  that  little  from 
history.  Nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  Bol- 
shevist psychology  is  more  remarkable  than 
the  utter  obliviousness  of  the  Bolshevist  lead- 
ers to  the  plain  lessons  of  history.  Take,  for 
example,  the  insistence  of  Lenine  and 
Trotzky,  approved  by  their  American  fol- 
lowers, that  the  proletariat  of  to-day  must  base 
its  tactics  upon  the  example  of  the  ill-fated 
Paris  Commune  of  1871;  could  there  be  a 
more  glaring  illustration  of  mental  inability 
to  profit  from  even  the  most  tragic  experience? 

The  Commune  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
social  theories  of  Communism,  of  course.  It 
was  purely  a  political  movement.  Widely 
divergent  groups,  holding  economic  and 
social  theories  which  were  antagonistic  and 
mutually  destructive,  united  in  hostility  to  the 
existing  government,  to  the  Prussian  peace, 

18 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

and  in  favor  of  political  federalism.  The 
only  basis  of  agreement  of  a  constructive  na- 
ture was  the  theory  that  the  State  should  con- 
sist of  absolutely  autonomous  self-governing 
communes,  loosely  federated,  and  subject  to 
no  central  authority  whatever.  It  was  fun- 
damentally a  retrogressive  and  reactionary 
proposal,  which,  if  successful,  would  have 
weakened  France  immeasurably  and  made 
her  an  easy  prey  to  the  new  Empire  which 
Bismarck  created. 

Because  the  French  members  of  the  already 
tottering  Internationale  were  active  in  the 
Commune,  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  unrest  by 
the  never-dying  hope  that  the  extremity  of  the 
old  order,  as  they  conceived  the  crisis,  would 
prove  the  golden  opportunity  of  the  new, 
Marx  himself  saw  it  through  rose-tinted 
revolutionary  spectacles.  For  a  brief  while 
he  lapsed  back  into  the  faith  of  Blanqui,  the 
belief  that  an  energetic,  courageous  and  ably 
led  minority  could  seize  the  powers  of  organ- 
ized society  and  set  in  motion  a  new  social 
order.  But  Marx  was  very  soon  disillusioned, 
as  Engels  has  told  us.  It  could  not  be  other- 
wise: his  theory  of  the  economic  motivation 
of  history  was  too  firmly  based,  too  dominant 
in  his  mind,  to  be  thus  easily  destroyed.  A 

19 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

more  reckless,  ill-advised  undertaking,  or  one 
more  certainly  doomed  to  abortive  failure 
was  never  attempted. 

Even  for  the  limited  program  of  political 
federalism  the  methods  of  the  Commune  were 
inadequate  to  the  point  of  puerility.  Chil- 
dren playing  with  fire  symbolize  wisdom  in 
comparison  with  the  desperate  men  who 
thought  thus  to  seize  the  political  machinery 
of  a  great  modern  State  and  immediately  di- 
rect it  to  new  ends.  So  much  Marx  and 
Engels  recognized  before  the  tragic  struggle 
was  over.  But  nearly  half  a  century  later  we 
find  men  like  Lenine  and  Trotzky  ignorantly 
repeating  the  tragic  errors  of  1871,  upon  a 
far  vaster  scale;  trying  to  apply  the  methods 
of  the  Commune  to  the  immeasurable  task  of 
realizing  the  vast  program  of  communism  in 
a  land  in  which  the  historical  and  economic 
development  for  that  program  is  wholly  lack- 
ing. It  would  be  a  spectacle  to  excite  the 
laughter  of  gods  and  men  were  the  issues  less 
tragic,  but  there  can  be  no  laughter,  no  mock- 
ing derision,  only  infinite  sadness,  when  we 
remember  that  their  ghastly  experiment 
amounts  to  a  vivisection  of  the  writhing  and 
bleeding  body  of  Russia. 

How,  then,  shall  we  account  for  the  readi- 
20 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

ness  of  men  and  women  who  have  thought 
long  and  earnestly  upon  the  social  question, 
who  call  themselves  'liberals  and  democrats, 
to  applaud  a  policy  so  inherently  and  so 
demonstrably  illiberal  and  undemocratic,  so 
completely  discredited?  It  is  easy  enough  to 
understand  how  the  illiterate,  ignorant,  and 
superstitious,  goaded  by  misery,  follow  these 
mad  counsels,  but  what  of  the  men  and  wom- 
en of  education,  the  Intellectuals,  who  defend 
them  instead  of  exposing  them  for  what  they 
are? 


V. 


No  single  formula  affords  an  adequate  an- 
swer to  these  questions.  No  one  category 
covers  all  these  misguided  muddlers.  There 
are  various  distinct  and  separate  approaches 
to  the  same  evil  result.  We  can,  however,  de- 
fine some  of  the  categories  with  reasonable 
and  useful  clearness.  Some  are  so  embittered 
by  hatred  of  the  capitalist  system  and  its  man- 
ifold injustices  that  they  are  incapable  of  mak- 
ing rational  and  moral  distinctions  in  all  mat- 
ters relating  to  the  struggle  against  that  sys- 
tem. Often  they  are  highly  intelligent  men 
and  women  of  the  highest  rectitude  in  their 

3  21 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

personal  lives,  inspired  by  the  purest  motives, 
but  rendered  so  abnormal  by  hatred  of  the  sys- 
tem and  its  results  as  to  be  incapable  of  mak- 
ing those  mental  and  moral  distinctions  which 
are  essential  to  sound  and  efficient  citizenship. 
It  is  characteristic  of  this  type  that  passionate 
and  sincere  denunciation  of  even  petty  injus- 
tice, when  this  emanates  from  the  ruling  class, 
is  commonly  associated  with  a  most  callous  in- 
difference to,  or  even  passionate  indulgence 
in  or  defense  of,  the  grossest  acts  of  injustice 
emanating  from  the  subject  class,  even  when 
the  victims  of  these  acts  of  injustice  are  not 
members  of  the  ruling  class,  but  fellow  mem- 
bers of  the  class  to  which  the  perpetrators  of 
the  unjust  acts  belong.  What  seems  to  be 
evidence  of  moral  inconsistency  and  insincer- 
ity is  in  fact  evidence  of  a  pathological  con- 
dition, a  fairly  well  defined  form  of  psycho- 
neurosis. 

Another  large  category  is  composed  of 
typical  victims  of  another  quite  well  defined 
form  of  hysterical  hyperesthesia.  Their 
thought  processes  are  spasmodic  and  violently 
emotional.  They  are  obsessed  by  some  fixed 
idea,  which  is  emotionally  and  not  rationally 
derived.  This  type  of  mind  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  much  extensive  observation  and  study, 

22 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

particularly  in  connection  with  religious 
forms  of  hysteria.  No  one  who  has  attended 
many  Bolshevist  meetings,  or  is  acquainted 
with  many  of  the  individuals  to  whom  Bol- 
shevism makes  a  strong  appeal,  will  seriously 
question  the  statement  that  an  impressively 
large  number  of  those  who  profess  to  be  Bol- 
shevists present  a  striking  likeness  to  extreme 
religious  zealots,  not  only  in  the  manner  of 
manifesting  their  enthusiasm  but  also  in  their 
methods  of  exposition  and  argument.  Just 
as  in  religious  hysteria  a  single  text  becomes 
a  whole  creed,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other 
text,  and  instead  of  being  itself  subject  to  ra- 
tional tests  is  made  the  sole  test  of  the  ra- 
tionality of  everything  else,  so,  in  the  case  of 
the  average  Bolshevik  of  this  type,  a  single 
phrase  received  into  the  mind  in  a  spasm  of 
emotion,  never  tested  by  the  usual  criteria  of 
reason,  becomes  not  only  the  very  essence  of 
truth,  but  also  the  standard  by  which  the  truth 
or  untruth  of  everything  else  must  be  de- 
termined. Most  of  the  preachers  who  become 
pro-Bolsheviks  are  of  this  type. 

People  who  possess  minds  thus  affected  are 
generally  capable  of,  and  frequently  indulge 
in,  the  strictest  logical  deduction  and 
analysis.  Sometimes  they  acquire  the  reputa- 

23 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

tion  of  being  exceptionally  brilliant  thinkers 
because  of  this  power.  But  the  fact  is  that 
their  initial  ideas,  upon  which  everything  is 
pivoted,  are  derived  emotionally  and  are  not 
the  results  of  a  deliberate  weighing  of  avail- 
able evidence.  The  initial  movement  is  one 
of  feeling,  of  emotional  impulse.  The  con- 
viction thereby  created  is  so  strong  and  so 
dominant  that  it  cannot  be  affected  by  any 
purely  rational  functional  factors.  As  long 
as  it  remains,  that  is  to  say  until  the  spasm 
passes  or  some  fresh  and  more  powerful  emo- 
tional impulse  pushes  it  aside,  it  grips  the 
mind  and  enslaves  its  faculties.  People  of 
this  type,  who,  as  the  popular  saying  goes, 
"think  with  their  feelings,"  are  far  more 
numerous  than  is  generally  supposed.  They 
fall  very  easy  victims  to  religious  hysteria, 
and  to  all  forms  of  propaganda  and  agitation 
in  which  the  main  characteristics  of  hysteria 
are  present. 

It  is  characteristic  of  this  type — and  the 
characteristic  is  admirably  illustrated  by  Bol- 
shevist literature — that  it  coincidently  decries 
intellectualism  and  parades  its  own  intellec- 
tuality. Sneering  at  intellectual  demonstra- 
tion it  displays  at  the  same  time  a  childish 
pride  in  its  own  manifestations  of  intellectual 

24 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

power  and  resources.  People  of  this  type 
jump  at  decisions  and  reach  very  positive  con- 
victions upon  the  most  difficult  matters  with 
bewildering  ease.  They  have  been  rushed  to 
these  convictions  upon  a  storm  of  emotion, 
and  have  not  endured  the  protracted  and  pain- 
ful labor  of  moving  step  by  step  along  a  way 
paved  with  intellectually  satisfying  resultants 
of  deliberation  and  weighed  evidence.  In 
consequence  of  this  peculiar  experience  they 
see  every  problem  in  very  simple  terms.  For 
them  the  complexities  and  intricacies  which 
trouble  the  normal  mind  do  not  exist.  Every- 
thing is  either  black  or  white:  there  are  no 
perplexing  intervening  grays.  Right  is  right 
and  wrong  is  wrong:  they  do  not  recognize 
that  there  are  doubtful  twilight  zones.  Ideas 
capable  of  the  most  elaborate  expansion  and 
the  most  subtle  intricacies  of  interpretation 
are  immaturely  grasped  and  preached  with 
naive  assurance.  Statements  alleged  to  be 
facts,  no  matter  what  their  source,  if  they 
seem  to  support  the  convictions  thus  emo- 
tionally derived,  are  received  without  any  ex- 
amination and  used  as  conclusive  proof,  not- 
withstanding that  a  brief  investigation  would 
prove  them  to  be  worthless  as  evidence. 
There  are  other  recognized  characteristics 

25 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  this  type  of  abnormality,  all  of  which  will 
be  found  strongly  marked  in  the  mentality  of 
the  average  Bolshevik.  Bitter  intolerance  is 
one  of  these.  Of  course,  intolerance  is  not, 
per  se,  a  sign  of  hysteria.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
intolerance  is  the  outcome  of  pure  rationality. 
But  when  an  audience  of  radical  protesters 
against  limitations  upon  the  right  to  free 
speech  and  free  publication  hiss  and  howl 
down  whoever  tries  to  express  an  opinion  with 
which  they  do  not  agree,  their  conduct  is 
hysterical,  that  is,  excessively  emotional,  and 
not  rational:  they  are  not  logically  consistent 
to  any  ideal  of  freedom.  In  the  moment  of 
demanding  freedom  they  are  denying  the  free- 
dom already  existing.  More  than  once  I  have 
seen  Bolshevist  audiences,  as  well  as  audiences 
of  Socialists,  howl  with  fury  in  denunciation 
of  the  suppression  of  free  speech  by  police 
authorities,  and  then  furiously  clamor  till  they 
have  howled  or  terrorized  into  silence  some 
speaker  with  whose  views  they  did  not  agree ; 
thus  suppressing,  most  effectually,  the  ex- 
pression of  opinions  they  did  not  favor.  Thus 
they  were  coincidently  doing  a  thing  and  de- 
nouncing others  for  doing  it.  Certainly, 
wholly  rational  minds  would  not  be  so  incon- 
sistent. Of  course,  emotional  infectiousness 

26 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

and  mass  suggestion  are  present  in  such  cases. 
Crowd  psychology  is  distinct  from  individual 
psychology.  The  fact  remains,  however,  that 
the  individuals  comprising  the  crowd  are 
peculiarly  over-emotional. 

The  group  of  men  and  women  in  this  coun- 
try whose  sympathy  for  the  Bolsheviki  is  well- 
known  have  been  notably  ready  to  protest 
against  despotic  and  undemocratic  acts,  such 
as  the  suppression  of  free  speech  and  assem- 
blage, the  brutal  treatment  of  political  prison- 
ers, excessive  prison  sentences,  and  so  on. 
With  what  fervor  they  denounced  the  restric- 
tions imposed  upon  popular  liberties  during 
the  war  we  know.  How  strenuously  they  ob- 
jected to  conscription,  and  how  solicitous 
they  were  for  the  supposed  "rights"  of  the  so- 
called  conscientious  objectors,  will  be  remem- 
bered. Now,  zeal  for  popular  freedom  is  a 
noble  quality  and  should  not  be  held  lightly 
or  derided.  By  such  zeal  the  heritage  of 
hardly-won  freedom  is  preserved  from  age 
to  age.  It  is  when  we  turn  from  contempla- 
tion of  their  attitude  as  defenders  of  freedom 
to  their  attitude  as  defenders  of  the  Bolshe- 
viki that  the  group  we  are  discussing  are  seen 
to  be  intellectually  unbalanced.  Ask  any  of 
them  to  condemn  the  outrageous  suppression 

27 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

of  popular  liberties  by  the  Bolshevist  govern- 
ment in  Russia,  the  unspeakably  brutal  treat- 
ment of  men  and  women  whose  only  offense  is 
the  expression  of  democratic  opinions,  or  the 
ruthless  murder  of  innocent  men  and  women, 
and  no  word  of  condemnation  will  come. 
They  will  defend  the  suppression  of  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly,  of  public  meetings,  and  the 
press;  they  will  condone  and  defend  the  in- 
troduction by  the  Bolsheviki  of  capital 
punishment  without  trial,  conscription  and 
every  other  device  of  militarism,  alleging  sim- 
ply that  these  things  are  necessary  to  enable 
the  Bolsheviki  to  "save  the  fruits  of  the 
Revolution."  Reply  to  them  that  here  in 
America  we,  too,  had  a  Revolution,  the  fruits 
of  which  we  sought  to  save  by  conscription 
and  by  extraordinary  restrictions  of  our  nor- 
mal freedom,  and  it  at  once  becomes  apparent 
that  some  mental  inhibition  makes  them  in- 
capable of  applying  to  America  the  rule  they 
so  glibly  apply  to  Russia.  The  simple  truth 
is  that  reason  does  not  rule  in  their  minds:  it 
is  only  present  as  a  secondary  force,  as  a  de- 
pendent of  a  controlling  master  emotion. 

Equally  characteristic  of  this  form  of 
psycho-neurosis  is  the  manner  in  which  the 
actions  of  those  subject  to  it  are  determined  by 

28 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

slogans,  catchwords,  and  formulae.  This 
verbal  hypnosis  idealizes  the  commonplace 
for  them,  and  makes  it  possible  for  old  and 
time-worn  ideas  to  excite  the  enthusiasm  and 
energy  peculiarly  associated  with  the  exhilara- 
tion of  intellectual  adventure  and  discovery. 
Quite  frequently  ideas  and  programs  which 
make  no  appeal  under  old  and  familiar  n.jnes 
create  tremendous  enthusiasm  when  they  are 
labelled  with  new  and  unfamiliar  names. 
Many  examples  of  this  might  be  cited,  but 
two  or  three  illustrations  must  suffice.  Dur- 
ing the  whole  period  of  modern  industrialism 
there  was  never  a  time  when  discontented 
workers  did  not  attempt  to  gain  revenge  for 
real  or  fancied  wrongs  by  spoiling  materials 
and  tools,  retarding  production,  and  so  on. 
Nothing  in  these  practices  ever  inspired  men 
to  construct  elaborate  theories  about  them, 
or  to  build  policies  upon  them,  until  the 
strange  Scotch  colloquialism  "Ca  Canny" 
fascinated  a  little  group  of  French  Intel- 
lectuals and  to  translate  it  they  coined  the  new 
word  "Sabotage,"  which  in  turn  fascinated 
certain  groups  in  this  country.  Commonplace 
trades  union  policies  and  ideas  were  thus 
easily  glorified  by  the  mere  substitution  of 
French  terms  for  English. 

29 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  hypnotic  influence 
of  such  unfamiliar  terms  as  "Bolshevism"  and 
"Soviet  Government"  has  had  far  more  effect 
in  making  the  central  features  of  the  prin- 
ciples and  policies  connoted  by  them  accept- 
able than  any  of  the  qualities  of  the  principles 
and  policies  themselves.  If  it  had  been  pro- 
posed that,  instead  of  our  present  form  of  gov- 
ernment, we  should  establish  government  by 
our  Trades  and  Labor  Councils,  very  few  of 
our  Intellectuals  would  have  found  anything 
in  the  proposal  to  enlist  their  sympathy  and 
support.  Yet  that  is  precisely  what  soviet 
government  means.  As  far  back  as  1869,  at 
the  Congress  of  the  old  Internationale,  the  re- 
placing of  political  governments  by  federated 
councils  of  labor  unions  was  actively  promul- 
gated and  became  the  basis  of  a  propaganda. 
This  old  idea  was  revived  by  the  I.  W.  W., 
in  1905,  but  fell  flat  and  went  unheeded  by 
our  Intellectuals  until  the  introduction  of  the 
French  word  "Syndicalism"  gave  it  some- 
thing of  a  vogue  for  a  brief  while.  Lenine 
has  admitted  that  he  and  his  colleagues  sim- 
ply adopted  the  I.  W.  W.  program  in  its  en- 
tirety, but  lo,  because  a  Russian  name  has 
been  attached  to  it,  it  is  hailed  as  something 
new  under  the  sun. 

30 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

Finally,  the  hysterical  type  we  are  discuss- 
ing is  easily  moved  to  ecstacy  and  sees  in 
minor  and  relatively  restricted  measures  al- 
most unbounded  potentialities.  In  an  earlier 
day  the  Chartists  of  England  contended  for 
reforms  which  were  just  and  altogether  ad- 
mirable. In  all  save  minor  and  unimportant 
details,  their  program  was  realized.  It  is 
highly  amusing  and  equally  instructive  today 
to  read  the  ecstatic  forecasts  of  some  of  the 
hysterical  leaders  of  that  great  struggle  as  to 
the  results  to  be  expected  from  the  realization 
of  their  aims.  Much  the  same  thing  may  be 
said  of  the  numerous  agitations  and  prop- 
agandas which  have  succeeded — Co-opera- 
tion, equal  suffrage,  compulsory  education, 
prohibition.  Every  such  movement  has  seemed 
to  many  a  sure  and  safe  short-cut  to  Utopia. 
Yet  the  promised  land  is  still  far,  far  distant. 

If  we  take  the  group  of  American  Intellec- 
tuals who  at  present  are  ardent  champions 
of  Bolshevism  we  shall  find  that,  with  excep- 
tions so  few  as  to  be  almost  negligible,  they 
have  embraced  nearly  every  "ism"  as  it  arose, 
seeing  in  each  one  the  magic  solvent  of  hu- 
manity's ills.  Those  of  an  older  generation 
thus  regarded  bimetallism,  for  instance.  What 
else  could  be  required  to  make  the  desert 

31 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

bloom  like  a  garden  and  to  usher  in  the 
Earthly  Paradise?  The  younger  ones,  in 
their  turn,  took  up  Anarchist-Communism, 
Marxian  Socialism,  Industrial  Unionism, 
Syndicalism,  Birth  Control,  Feminism,  and 
many  other  movements  and  propagandas,  each 
of  which  in  its  turn  induced  ecstatic  visions 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  The  same 
individuals  have  grown  lyrical  in  praise  of 
every  bizarre  and  eccentric  art  fad.  In  the 
banal  and  grotesque  travesties  of  art  produced 
by  Cubists,  Futurists,  et  al,  they  saw  tran- 
scendent genius.  They  are  forever  seeking  new 
gods  and  burying  old  ones. 

The  typical  Bolshevist  Intellectual  of  the 
type  we  are  discussing  here,  as  distinguished 
from  the  proletarian  type  (whose  economic 
experience  and  environment  are  so  different 
and,  in  war  periods,  so  naturally  conducive  to 
the  Bolshevist  state  of  mind)  is  marked  by  the 
following  hysterical  characteristics:  exag- 
gerated egoism,  extreme  intolerance,  intellec- 
tual vanity,  hypercriticism,  self-indulgence; 
craving  for  mental  and  emotional  excitement, 
excessive  dogmatism,  hyperbolic  language, 
impulsive  judgment,  emotional  instability,  in- 
tense hero-worship,  propensity  for  intrigues 
and  conspiracies,  rapid  alternation  of  extremes 

32 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

of  exaltation  and  depression,  violent  contra- 
dictions in  tenaciously  held  opinions  and  be- 
liefs, periodic,  swift,  and  unsystematic 
changes  of  mental  attitude.  Not  every  in- 
dividual invariably  exhibits  all  of  these  char- 
acteristics, of  course,  nor  are  these  the  only 
characteristics,  generally  symptomatic  of 
hysteria,  to  be  observed  in  this  type. 

It  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  these 
individuals  are  all  hystericals  in  the  patho- 
logical sense,  but  it  is  strictly  accurate  to  say 
that  the  class  exhibits  marked  hysterical  char- 
acteristics and  that  it  closely  resembles  the 
large  class  of  over-emotionalized  religious  en- 
thusiasts which  furnish  so  many  true  hyster- 
icals. It  is  probable  that  accidents  of  environ- 
ment account  for  the  fact  that  their  emotion- 
alism takes  sociological  rather  than  religious 
forms.  If  the  sociological  impetus  were  ab- 
sent most  of  them  would  be  religiously  mo- 
tived to  a  state  not  less  abnormal. 

In  the  claque  applauding  Bolshevism,  and 
favoring  its  introduction  into  the  United 
States,  we  find  also  the  usual  number  of  ad- 
venturers common  to  revolutionary  move- 
ments and  uprisings.  Many  of  these  are  sim- 
ply gamblers.  They  rush  into  every  agitation, 
always  hoping  that  "something  will  turn  up." 

33 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

Native  uprisings  in  India  or  Africa,  Sinn 
Fein  rebellions  in  Ireland,  guerilla  warfare 
in  Mexico,  race  riots  in  Chicago  or  Buda 
Pest,  or  strikes  in  London  or  San  Francisco 
are  all  equally  alluring.  Every  disturbance, 
no  matter  what  the  cause  may  be,  is  welcome 
because  it  may  provide  the  occasion  for  the 
fateful  something  to  turn  up. 


VI. 


A  very  different  category  from  any  of  the 
foregoing  is  composed  of  a  small  class  of 
wealthy  persons  who  more  or  less  lavishly 
give  from  their  wealth  to  subsidize  the  Bol- 
shevist propaganda.  Testifying  before  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  one 
of  the  best  known  of  the  American  pro-Bol- 
shevist Intellectuals  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  the  Bolsheviki  can  always  readily  obtain 
funds  for  their  propaganda  from  rich,  idle 
women  who  have  nothing  else  to  do.  The  cold 
cynicism  of  this  remark  deserves  to  be  classed 
with  Lenine's  famous  statement,  at  the  Third 
Soviet  Conference,  "Among  one  hundred  so- 
called  Bolsheviki  there  is  one  real  Bolshevik, 
with  thirty-nine  criminals  and  sixty  fools." 

The  association  of  men  and  women  of  great 

34 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

wealth  with  such  a  propaganda  is  remarkable 
as  a  phenomenon,  but  not  exceptionally  un- 
usual. A  few  years  ago  it  was  observed  that 
a  number  of  rich  society  women  devoted  such 
sympathetic  attention  to  the  I.  W.  W.  that  it 
almost  became  a  society  fad.  The  I.  W.  W. 
leaders  were  quite  at  home  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  Fifth  Avenue,  and  were  familiar  fig- 
ures at  house  parties  on  the  fashionable  Massa- 
chusetts North  Shore.  Rich  women  are  far 
oftener  interested  in  such  propaganda  than 
the  men  of  their  families  and  their  circles, 
perhaps  due  less  to  sexual  differences  than 
to  the  fact  that  the  men  are  more  intimately 
and  directly  connected  with,  or  engaged  in, 
the  great  industrial  and  financial  organiza- 
tions which  are  the  center  of  attack.  It  is  well 
known,  however,  that  women  are  far  more 
subject  to  hysteria  than  men  whatever  the  ex- 
planation (concerning  which  there  has  been 
so  much  learned  controversy)  may  be. 

Notwithstanding  the  cynical  testimony  be- 
fore the  Committee  of  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate, already  quoted,  it  would  be  a  serious  mis- 
take to  conclude  that  Bolshevism  is  only  sub- 
sidized by  fad-seeking  women  of  the  idle 
rich  class.  On  the  contrary,  some  of  the  wom- 
en who  give  their  money  to  sustain  the  prop- 
as 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

aganda  of  such  movements  as  Anarchism, 
Syndicalism,  and  Bolshevism  are  serious  and 
high-minded  women  of  splendid  intelligence 
and  character.  They  are  in  no  sense  of  the 
term  society  butterflies;  they  are  not  inferior 
in  character  or  general  intelligence  to  the 
women  of  the  same  class  who  support 
churches,  missions,  and  charities.  They  are, 
moreover,  quite  as  careful  and  as  conscientious 
in  spending  their  money. 

In  this  numerically  small  class  are  included 
several  distinct  types.  With  perhaps  one  ex- 
ception, hyperesthesia  is  common  to  all  of 
them.  The  exception  consists  of  unemotional 
individuals,  creatures  of  pure  intellect,  whose 
minds  work  with  mechanical  precision  and 
regularity.  A  cynical  contempt  for  minds 
which  are  less  exact,  or  which  are  influenced 
by  sentiment,  is  common  to  these  super-in- 
tellects. Generally,  they  are  crass  ma- 
terialists. Generally,  too,  their  sexual  life  is 
either  arrested  or  abnormal.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  of  the  women.  They  have  been 
thwarted  in  love  and  remained  unmarried, 
their  normal  desires  being  starved,  or  if  mar- 
ried they  are  sterile.  Such  people  come  as 
near  attaining  "the  passionless  pursuits  of 
passionless  knowledge"  as  human  beings  may. 

36 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

The  type  is  hard,  dried-up,  brilliant,  and  ca- 
pable of  great  callousness  and  cruelty.  Minds 
of  this  cold,  mechanically  exact  type  are  often 
remorselessly  analytical,  and  they  find  con- 
stant exercise  in  the  dissection  of  social  insti- 
tutions, laws,  and  customs,  in  exposing  the 
multitudinous  imperfections  of  these  and  in 
devising  perfectly  working  substitutes  for 
them.  They  are  natural  born  Utopia-makers. 
Spurning  sentiment,  indifferent  to  traditions, 
careless  of  others'  feelings,  they  take  into  ac- 
count every  fact  but  one,  namely,  life,  as 
Emerson  said  of  Robert  Owen  and  his  asso- 
ciates. 

To  such  minds  democracy,  even  at  its  best, 
must  appear  crude,  ill-working,  and  inca- 
pable of  efficient  functioning.  Soviet  govern- 
ment can  be  diagrammed  and  made  to  appear, 
on  paper,  very  much  better  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  a  complex  industrial  society.  The 
same  type  of  mind  is  allured  by  artificial  and 
arbitrary  schemes  and  systems  of  all  kinds, 
such  as  systems  of  human  stirpiculture,  new 
forms  of  family  life,  methods  of  feeding,  cur- 
rency systems,  and  so  on.  From  people  possess- 
ing minds  of  this  type  and  plenty  of  cash 
come  most  of  those  curious  books  propound- 
ing new  and  elaborately  devised  schemes  for 

4  37 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

remaking  society  which  start  out  by  putting 
aside  as  of  no  consequence  the  whole  past 
history  of  mankind  and  all  the  strongest 
forces  of  human  nature.  There  is  a  god-like 
detachment  in  the  attitude  of  these  cold- 
blooded supermen:  they  seem  to  say  "Come, 
let  us  remake  mankind  and  the  world  accord- 
ing to  our  own  patterns." 

A  much  more  numerous  group  in  this  class 
is  composed  of  men  and  women,  the  latter  be- 
ing the  more  numerous,  in  whom  hyperes- 
thesia  takes  the  form  of  a  modified  Christian 
asceticism.  They  are  morbidly  sensitive  of 
the  privileged  position  they  occupy  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  possession  of  wealth  they  have  not 
earned,  and  feel  a  keen  sense  of  personal  re- 
sponsibility for  the  existence  of  the  ills  which 
attend  the  production  of  the  wealth  they 
possess,  especially  poverty  and  its  ill  effects 
upon  the  wage-earners  and  their  families. 
Philanthropy  cannot  satisfy  minds  of  this 
order.  They  are  too  literally  Christian  for 
that.  The  social  implications  of  the  Christian 
religion  lead  far  beyond  philanthropic  make- 
shifts. It  requires  something  quite  different 
than  poverty  relieved  by  private  bounty,  noth- 
ing less,  in  fact,  than  a  complete  revolution 
in  society  which  shall  make  possible  full 

SI 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

equality  of  opportunity  for  every  human  be- 
ing, which  is  the  Christian  ideal. 

Recognition  of  these  facts  and  a  profound 
social  consciousness  are  admirable  and  praise- 
worthy. The  sincere  Christian  who  conse- 
crates his  or  her  wealth  to  bring  society  to  the 
Christian  ideal  is  all  too  rare  in  the  world  to- 
day and  merits  praise  and  reverence.  But  the 
problem  which  this  presents  to  the  individual 
is  exceedingly  intricate  and  difficult,  as  Tol- 
stoy, among  others,  found.  The  advice  given 
by  Jesus  to  the  rich  young  man,  to  sell  all  he 
had  and  give  the  proceeds  to  the  poor,  how- 
ever well  suited  to  the  particular  case,  is  not 
a  solution  of  the  problem  as  it  presents  itself 
to  the  average  rich  man  or  woman.  Be  the 
difficulties  ever  so  great,  however,  the  goal 
will  always  challenge  the  earnest  effort  of 
souls  whose  faith  is  simple  and  direct  and  in- 
capable of  subtle  adaptations. 

The  borderland  which  divides  healthy  re- 
ligious idealism  from  morbidity  is  narrow 
and  easily  crossed,  as  the  history  of  numerous 
religious  ascetics  clearly  shows.  Frequently 
the  difference  is  the  result  of  sexual  discon- 
tent. Definition  here  may  be  practically  im- 
possible, but  the  distinction  is  valid  and  im- 
portant. That  most  of  the  wealthy  supporters 

39 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  Bolshevism  belonging  to  the  group  under 
consideration  have  crossed  the  narrow  border- 
land is  evident.  As  a  rule  they  are  ready  to 
believe  the  worst  of  the  system  and  also  of 
its  beneficiaries,  the  class  to  which  they  be- 
long. On  the  other  hand,  they  idealize  the 
class  below,  even  its  vices.  The  luxury  by 
which  they  are  surrounded  becomes  intoler- 
able to  them,  yet  no  degree  of  simplicity  or 
austerity  in  the  manner  of  living  possible  to 
them  without  disrupting  all  family  and  social 
ties  can  bring  contentment.  Consequently, 
every  advantage  they  possess  becomes  a  source 
of  secret  torment.  They  develop  a  psychic 
state  differing  not  in  kind,  but  only  in  degree, 
from  that  of  the  religious  ascetics  and  mystics 
who  in  all  ages  have  sought  and  found  solace 
in  self-abasement,  living  in  caves,  wearing 
hair  shirts,  and  other  forms  of  "mortification 
of  the  flesh."  They  hold  education  and  cul- 
ture lightly,  even  despising  them  as  fruits  of 
cursed  wealth,  and  readily  accept  the  leader- 
ship of  ignorant  fanatics  and  demagogues. 
Apocalyptic  preachers  of  rapidly  approach- 
ing equalitarian  milleniums  readily  attain 
ascendancy  over  such  minds. 

Because  the  inner  tension  is  so  great  and 
compelling,  minds  in  this  psychic  state  are 

40 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

immune  to  impressions  from  without.  The 
appeal  of  rationality,  therefore,  is  quite  fruit- 
less when  directed  against  convictions  result- 
ing from  that  inner  tension.  The  most 
abundant  and  conclusive  evidence  which  tells 
against  their  convictions  is  rejected.  The 
paltriest  excuse  suffices  to  justify  this  rejec- 
tion: "It  comes  from  the  capitalist  press," 
"He  is  a  'capitalist  and  would  naturally  say 
that,"  "He  does  not  understand" — with  such 
phrases  the  most  important  and  amply 
validated  testimony  is  swept  aside.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  wildest  and  most  improbable 
statements  are  believed  when  they  are  agree- 
able and  conform  to  convictions  already 
firmly  established.  Rumors  and  fancies  be- 
come facts,  and  no  amount  of  exposure  will 
suffice  to  discredit  them. 

That  persons  of  this  type  should  support 
the  propaganda  of  Bolshevism  and  similar 
cults  in  this  country  is  perfectly  natural.  They 
are  dangerous  in  proportion  to  the  wealth  and 
the  social  influence  they  possess.  Yet  they  are 
only  differentiated  by  indefinable  and  almost 
imperceptible  degrees  of  sensibility  and  sug- 
gestibility from  an  extremely  important  and 
useful  social  group,  men  and  women  of 
wealth  and  social  influence  who,  keenly  aware 

41 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  the  evils  which  beset  modern  society,  and 
earnestly  and  intelligently  seeking  to  serve 
the  common  good,  devote  their  wealth  and 
their  influence  to  the  furtherance  of  well-con- 
sidered social  reforms  and  programs  of  social 
reconstruction.  Women's  trade  unionism, 
movements  for  equal  suffrage,  child  labor 
legislation,  housing  reform,  Single  Tax,  and 
Socialism  are  among  the  many  constructive 
movements  which  have  thus  been  advanced. 
Another  fairly  definite  group  included  in 
this  class  of  rich  pro-Bolshevists  differs  from 
the  religious  type  simply  in  the  source  of  their 
exaggerated  emotional  sensibility.  Religion 
in  the  formal  sense  is  lacking  as  a  causative 
factor:  their  hyperesthesia  is  of  secular  origin. 
In  this  group,  as  in  the  others,  women  greatly 
outnumber  men,  though  the  disparity  of 
numbers  is  not  so  great  as  in  the  religious 
group.  A  very  important  factor  in  the 
psychology  of  this  group  is  what  for  lack  of 
a  better  term  may  be  called  the  impatient  re- 
action from  experienced  disillusionment. 
Ardent  idealists,  deeply  stirred  by  the  poverty 
and  sufferings  of  the  poor,  and  by  the  injus- 
tice too  often  meted  out  to  the  workers  in  the 
conflict  of  the  classes,  they  have  tried,  through 
Settlement  work  and  other  non-revolutionary 

42 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

agencies,  to  bring  about  better  conditions. 
Even  where  their  work,  when  seen  in  proper 
perspective,  has  been  admirably  effective  and 
successful,  they  have  experienced  a  crushing 
and  bitter  sense  of  failure  and  disappoint- 
ment. It  is  ever  thus  with  the  reformer :  the 
effect  of  the  outpouring  of  the  whole  energy 
of  a  single  life  is  so  microscopic  and  im- 
ponderable; the  fair  ideal  seems,  after  a  life- 
time spent  in  its  quest,  as  far  away  as  ever. 
Such  disillusionment  brings  a  state  of  de- 
pression and  exaggerated  sensibility,  the  most 
fertile  soil  for  desperate  suggestions  con- 
firmatory of,  or  logically  developing,  their 
mood.  In  this  state  of  mind  they  are  easily 
persuaded  that  daring  and  drastic  revolution- 
ary practices  are  imperative.  They  are  easily 
persuaded,  too,  that  "things  cannot  be  worse." 
Political  methods  with  their  innumerable 
compromises,  delays,  intrigues,  and  decep- 
tions, exasperate  such  persons  and  they  are 
readily  converted  to  "direct  action." 

There  remains  the  intellectually  heterog- 
enous  group  composed  of  individuals  who 
belong  to  none  of  the  foregoing  classifications. 
Some  are  simple  romanticists,  always  living 
in  a  dream-world  of  their  own,  ignoring 
realities  and  governed  in  their  actions  by  ab- 

43 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

stract  ideas  and  ideals:  War  is  wrong,  there- 
fore let  us  end  it  by  making  the  fighting  men 
see  that  they  are  doing  wrong;  let  us  get  the 
men  out  of  the  trenches  and  send  them  home. 
We  believe  in  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  there- 
fore let  us  urge  the  intermarriage  of  negroes 
and  whites.  It  was  a  rich  Northern  woman 
of  this  type  who  proposed  to  go  into  the 
Southern  States  to  "wipe  out  the  distinctions 
which  keep  the  children  of  a  common  Father 
apart."  In  her  recklessness  she  was  ready  to 
make  a  terrible  experiment  upon  the  life  of 
a  great  nation,  to  risk  the  most  disastrous  con- 
sequences. Others  in  this  heterogeneous  group 
are  innately  rebellious  spirits,  instinctive 
anarchists  as  it  were,  who  can  recognize  the 
presence  of  no  authority,  law,  or  binding  cus- 
tom without  feeling  an  overpowering  resent- 
ment and  passion  to  defy  it.  Finally,  there 
are  the  neurasthenics  whose  mental  nerves  re- 
quire the  constant  excitation  of  novelty,  pre- 
cisely as  others  require  the  excitation  of  al- 
coholic exhilaration,  and  those  who  similarly 
crave  the  stimulus  derived  from  notoriety. 
These  last  find  their  contracts  with  revolu- 
tionary agitations  an  easy  way  into  the  head- 
lines of  the  daily  press. 


44 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

VII 

Considered  either  as  the  faith  or  the  fad  of 
rich  men  and  women,  or  of  little  coteries  of 
bourgeois  Intellectuals,  Bolshevism  would  not 
be  very  important.  The  association  of  such 
individuals  and  groups  with  this  revolution- 
ary propaganda  merits  attention  mainly  be- 
cause of  its  value  as  an  auxiliary  to  a  really 
formidable  force  which  has  its  origin  and  its 
location  in  lower  social  levels.  Apart  from 
this  fact  it  would  be  of  interest  to  the  psychol- 
ogist only  for  its  illustration  of  certain 
minor  forms  of  abnormal  psychology.  Bol- 
shevism is  important  as  a  manifestation  of  as- 
piration and  energy  by  a  section  of  the 
proletariat,  as  the  hope  and  the  effort  of  a 
fairly  considerable  and  growing  portion  of 
the  most  numerous  class  in  society,  a  class 
potentially  powerful  enough  in  this  and  other 
highly  developed  industrial  nations  to  impose 
its  rule,  whether  for  good  or  ill. 

As  we  have  already  noted,  the  term  pro- 
letariat which  Marx  used,  and  which  has 
come  into  our  common  everyday  usage 
through  Marxian  Socialist  literature,  hardly 
applies,  in  the  sense  in  which  Marx  used  it, 
to  the  bulk  of  the  working-class  in  this  or  al- 

45 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

most  any  other  great  modern  nation.  It  is  a 
misnomer  to  apply  the  term  to  a  citizen  class. 
Little  or  no  good  can  result,  however,  from 
attempting  to  overcome  this  error  and  to  im- 
pose a  new  and  restricted  meaning  to  a  word 
so  popularly  misused.  Presumably  the  word 
"proletariat"  will  continue  to  be  used  as  a 
synonym  for  "wage-working  class." 

To  account  for  the  spread  of  Bolshevist 
ideas  and  ideals  among  the  members  of  this 
class  to  such  an  extent  that  it  constitutes  one 
one  of  the  greatest  political  facts  of  our  time, 
a  knowledge  of  the  historical  background  is 
imperatively  necessary.  It  is  impossible  to 
understand  Bolshevism  unless  and  until  we 
understand  the  class  psychology  which  pro- 
duces it,  and  that  requires  an  intelligent 
understanding  of  the  great  struggle  of  oppos- 
ing classes  which  characterizes  modern 
capitalist  society.  Bolshevism  is  a  product 
of  that  struggle  and  inseparable  from  it.  The 
struggle  of  the  classes  is  not  a  mere  Marxian 
hypothesis;  it  is  a  profound  fact  of  fun- 
damental importance,  a  major  factor  among 
the  determinants  of  social  evolution.  Whether 
we  accept  the  class  struggle  theory  of  Marx 
or  reject  it,  and  whatever  we  may  think  of  the 
philosophy  of  history  of  which  it  is  a  part, 

46 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

we  must  accept  the  fact  of  class  conflict  or 
fail  to  reach  an  intelligent  comprehension  of 
Bolshevism.  To  refuse  recognition  to  so 
obvious  a  fact,  to  deny  that  there  are  classes 
in  America,  classes  with  opposing  interests, 
each  with  a  distinct  psychology  of  its  own,  is 
to  darken  counsel  and  make  intelligent  cit- 
izenship difficult. 

Marx  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the  great 
stages  in  the  historical  development  of  man- 
kind were  the  culmination  of  struggles  be- 
tween classes  with  opposing  interests  and 
ideals.  A  dominant  class  is  overthrown  by  a 
class  hitherto  subject  but  henceforth  domi- 
nant. Thus  feudalism  was  supplanted  when 
the  feudal  nobility  was  overthrown  by  the 
newer  and  more  powerful  manufacturing  or 
capitalist  class.  It  was  not  only  in  their  basic 
economic  interests,  in  the  sources  of  their  in- 
come, that  these  two  great  classes  differed. 
They  differed  quite  as  much  in  their  political 
and  social  ideals.  In  precisely  the  same  way, 
the  modern  working-class  and  the  capitalist 
class  whose  power  it  challenges  have  different 
and  antagonistic  economic  interests  and  also 
different  and  antagonistic  political  and  social 
ideals.  Marx  called  upon  the  proletariat  to 
unite  against  a  common  foe,  to  subordinate 

47 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

every  difference  of  race,  creed,  or  craft  to  the 
end  of  reaching  a  common  goal.  A  desperate 
note  rang  through  his  stirring  appeal:  he  was 
addressing,  not  workers  merely,  but  prole- 
tarians, men  who  were  in  fact  wage-slaves, 
recognized  only  as  subjects  for  economic  ex- 
ploitation, property-less,  and  without  the  pro- 
tective and  assertive  powers  conferred  by  cit- 
izenship. It  was  to  a  class  which  had  no 
share  and  no  stake  in  the  State  that  he  ad- 
dressed the  appeal,  "Proletarians,  of  all  coun- 
tries, Unite !  you  have  nothing  to  lose  but  your 
chains;  you  have  a  world  to  gain!"  This  same 
appeal  is  being  made  today  to  a  working-class 
which  has,  indeed,  much  to  lose,  because  in 
the  meantime  it  has  gained  an  immense 
possession.  Bolsheviki,  Spartacists,  Anar- 
chists, Syndicalists,  Communists,  and  Social- 
ists reiterate  the  old  cry,  notwithstanding 
the  gains  made  by  trades  and  labor  unions, 
the  immense  progress  of  the  co-operatives, 
the  great  body  of  protective  and  remedial 
legislation,  and  the  extension  of  full  political 
rights  to  the  working  class  now,  almost  uni- 
versal. The  potency  of  the  old  appeal  in  the 
new  order  of  the  world  proves  that  there  is 
still  a  great  sense  of  injustice.  The  language 
of  the  appeal  may  be  attacked  for  its 

48 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

hyperbolic  exaggeration,  but  millions  re- 
spond to  it  because  they  feel  that  they  are 
victims  of  intolerable  wrongs  and  because  they 
feel  that  there  is  "a  world  to  gain"  by  pro- 
test and  sacrificial  struggle. 

When  we  are  inclined  to  content  ourselves 
with  the  judgment  that  a  class  which  has 
gained  so  much  should  be  gratefully  content, 
there  are  two  facts  to  be  remembered:  the 
first  fact  is  that  these  gains  have  been  won 
by  the  workers  themselves  by  heroic  effort 
and  sacrifice.  They  wrested  the  franchise 
from  the  ruling  class;. they  created  the  unions 
and  raised  the  standards  of  living;  their  agita- 
tion and  organization  forced  the  enactment 
of  the  protective  and  remedial  legislation. 
The  second  fact  is  that  the  social  ideals  of  a 
class  advance  with  improvements  in  its  con- 
ditions. In  the  upward  evolution  new  wants 
have  been  realized,  wrongs  newly  discovered, 
fresh  ambitions  developed,  new  and  higher 
standards  perceived.  To  vote,  to  choose  gov- 
ernors, is  no  longer  a  satisfying  ambition ;  that 
sufficed  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, but  today  the  desire  is  to  participate  in 
actually  governing.  "Fair  wages  for  a  fair 
day's  work"  was  a  far  vision  then;  today's 
vision  is  of  a  system  of  industrial  democracy 

49 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

dependent  on  no  such  cash  nexus,  but  on  col- 
lectively and  democratically  organized  labor 
for  the  collective  good.  Bearing  these  things 
in  mind,  why  should  a  struggle  which  has 
succeeded  so  admirably  so  far  be  abandoned? 
And  why  should  we  expect  the  workers  to  be 
silent  concerning  the  new  things  they  have 
learned? 

The  Marxian  shibboleth,  so  old  yet  ever 
new,  appears  in  its  extremist  form  in  the 
preamble  to  the  constitution  of  the  I.  W.  W. 
which  declares  that  "The  working  class  and 
the  capitalist  class  have  nothing  in  common." 
This  is  quite  obviously  untrue.  Probably  no 
one  really  believes  it  to  be  true.  It  is  a  notable 
example  of  the  extent  to  which  the  minds  of 
man  may  be  influenced  by  the  iteration  of  a 
misleading  phrase.  Every  individual  in  an 
I.  W.  W.  Convention  could  probably  be  made 
to  see  and  to  admit  that  the  sentence  above 
quoted  is  inaccurate,  yet  it  would  almost  cer- 
tainly be  impossible  to  get  such  a  Convention 
to  abandon  the  statement  in  favor  of  one 
which  every  individual  delegate  would  ac- 
cept as  accurate  and  truthful. 

That  workers  and  capitalists  living  in  the 
same  city,  or  the  same  nation,  have  a  great 

and  ever-increasing  number  of  common  in- 

so 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

terests  is  obvious.  They  have  common  in- 
terests in  good  sanitation,  fire  protection,  the 
integrity  of  the  courts,  the  inviolability  of 
the  ballot,  the  security  of  wives  and  children 
against  violent  assault,  the  regular  transporta- 
tion of  food,  and  so  through  an  almost  in- 
terminable list.  There  is  often  an  important 
identity  of  interests  between  capitalists  and 
wage-earners,  even  in  the  industrial  field, 
where  conflicting  interests  are  most  ac- 
centuated. Prolonged  unemployment  is 
equally  undesirable  to  both  classes.  The  at- 
tempt to  enact  legislation  injurious  to  or 
calculated  to  destroy  a  particular  industry 
unites  employers  and  employees  in  opposition 
to  it. 

There  is  an  important  element  of  truth  in 
the  exaggerated  aphorism.  There  is  a  con- 
flict of  economic  interest  inherent  in  the  rela- 
tions of  the  two  classes.  Leaving  narrow  and 
shortsighted  individual  policies  out  of  ac- 
count, and  considering  only  the  relations  of 
the  two  classes  exemplified  by  the  most  in- 
telligent and  progressive  policies  of  both,  the 
following  rule  is  reached:  the  undiluted 
economic  interest  of  the  capitalist  class  is  to 
maintain  between  the  sum  of  values  produced 
by  labor  and  the  sum  of  wages  paid  to  labor 

51 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  greatest  difference  consistent  with  the  ef- 
ficiency and  contentment  of  the  laborers.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  undiluted  economic  in- 
terest of  the  workers  is  to  receive  in  wages 
the  largest  possible  proportion  of  the  sum  of 
values  created  consistent  with  the  existence 
and  growth  of  the  enterprises  concerned. 
This  is  the  abstract  law:  of  course,  other  fac- 
tors, such  as  humanitarian  idealism,  love  of 
approbation,  tradition,  and  so  on,  may  enter 
in  and  exert  a  modifying  influence.  The 
economic  law,  however,  is  as  stated. 

From  this  fundamental  difference  of 
economic  interest  there  inevitably  proceeds  an 
equally  great  difference  in  class  consciousness 
and  feeling.  How  otherwise,  shall  we  account 
for  the  uniformity  with  which  the  employing 
class  has  opposed  the  unionism  of  the  work- 
ers, and  the  marked  degree  of  uniformity 
with  which  the  two  classes  have  taken  op- 
posite sides  in  almost  every  movement  to  bring 
the  State  into  the  regulation  of  industrial  con- 
ditions? In  the  early  stages  of  capitalism  the 
capitalist  class  held  the  principle  of  laissez 
faire  to  be  the  ideal  basis  for  industry  and 
for  the  guidance  of  the  conduct  of  the  State 
in  its  relations  with  industry.  The  workers, 
on  the  other  hand,  manifested  a  detestation 

52 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

of  this  principle,  too  uniformly  diffused 
throughout  the  entire  class  to  be  accidental, 
and  held  that  the  State  must  impose  limita- 
tions and  restrictions  upon  industry  in  such 
matters  as  hours  of  employment,  the  age  of 
availability  for  employment,  working  condi- 
tions, and  the  like.  Today  the  capitalist  class 
in  general  accepts  the  principle  of  active  in- 
terference by  the  State,  but  wants  this  inter- 
ference kept  within  bounds.  It  wants  private 
industrial  enterprise  in  every  field  with  only 
as  much  State  regulation  as  may  from  time 
to  time  be  found  necessary  to  maintain  the 
physical  well-being  of  the  workers  and  to 
avert  more  revolutionary  action.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  proportion  to  its  increase  of 
control  over  the  forces  of  the  State,  the  work- 
ing class  seeks  to  increase  the  regulative  func- 
tions of  the  State  in  industry,  and  even  to  have 
the  State  supplant  private  industrial  enter- 
prise in  many  important  fields. 


VIII 


Bolshevism  marks  the  extreme  point  of 
working  class  antagonism  to  the  capitalist 
ideal.  Here  as  elsewhere  extremes  meet  and 
there  are  many  resemblances  between  the  most 

5  53 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

anti-social  ways  of  the  capitalist  class  and 
some  of  the  anti-social  ways  of  the  Bolsheviki. 
But  increasing  opposition  to  private  capital 
and  industrial  enterprise  is  characteristic  of 
the  entire  organized  labor  movement,  and  not 
of  the  Bolshevist  minority  alone.  Year  by 
year  the  most  conservative  unions  progress 
toward  a  collectivist  ideal  in  their  demands. 
This  is  true  of  the  labor  movement  of  every 
great  industrial  nation  and  is  not  ma- 
terially affected  by  the  form  of  govern- 
ment. It  is  as  true  of  England  as  of 
the  United  States  and  of  Japan  as  of 
either  of  these  great  Occidental  countries. 
Labor's  instinctive  ideal  is  democratic  as  op- 
posed to  the  instinctively  autocratic  ideal  of 
the  capitalist  class.  But  for  the  modifying 
factors  of  State  interference  and  the  influence 
of  labor  organizations,  industry  would  still 
be  conducted  upon  the  lines  of  absolute  autoc- 
racy. Labor  during  the  last  fifty  years  or  so 
has  effectually  smashed  autocracy  in  indus- 
try. It  is  now  bent  upon  realizing  the  op- 
posite ideal  of  industrial  democracy.  Even 
Bolshevism,  utterly  autocratic  and  hostile  to 
democracy  as  it  is,  doubtless  aims  at  some 
form  of  industrial  democracy  as  an  ultimate 
ideal.  Lenine  and  all  the  other  recognized 

54 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

spokesmen  of  the  cult  have  insisted  that  the 
despotism  of  the  minority  euphemistically 
designated  the  "Dictatorship  of  the  Prole- 
tariat" is  to  be  transitory;  that  the  ultimate 
goal  is  industrial  democracy. 

Soviet  government  must  not  be  confounded 
with  Bolshevism.  The  two  things  are  quite 
distinct  and  each  must  be  judged  upon  its 
own  merits.  Not  all  who  believe  that  the 
Soviet  form  of  government  should  replace 
political  government  of  the  forms  familiar  to 
us  are  believers  in  Bolshevism.  Many  of  the 
most  earnest  opponents  of  Bolshevism  are 
equally  earnest  supporters  of  the  Soviet  type 
of  government.  They  would  achieve  the 
transformation  by  constitutional  methods,  in 
countries  where  constitutional  government  ex- 
ists, and  in  any  case  they  would  base  the  new 
system  upon  democratic  suffrage.  The  fact 
that  Bolshevism  first  appeared  as  a  political 
force  in  association  with  government  by  Soviet 
authority  does  not  warrant  us  in  regarding 
them  as  identical,  or  as  being  necessarily  in- 
terdependent, any  more  than  the  fact  that  Bol- 
shevism first  appeared  in  Russia  warrants  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  essentially  and  peculiarly 
Russian. 

That  in  some  manner  the  democratization 

55 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

of  industry  will  be  accomplished  in  a  not  far 
distant  future  is  a  safe  prediction.  It  is  prob- 
able that  the  best  features  of  Soviet  govern- 
ment will  be  grafted  on  to  the  political  State. 
With  the  attainment  of  political  democracy 
industrial  autocracy  was  doomed.  The  ex- 
istence of  a  superior  ruling  economic  caste 
speedily  becomes  an  intolerable  anachronism 
in  a  State  where  political  democracy  is  safely 
established.  The  idea  that  masses  of  men  and 
women  must  spend  the  greater  part  of  their 
lives  working  under  conditions  determined  by 
others,  without  any  effective  and  established 
right  to  control  their  labor  and  its  fruits  is 
obsolete.  It  does  not  belong  to  the  twentieth 
century.  There  is  much  significance  in  the 
fact  that  the  only  constructive  program  for 
maintaining  our  system  of  railway  transporta- 
tion, which  had  reached  a  condition  of  near 
bankruptcy  and  administrative  and  functional 
chaos  under  capitalist  management,  comes 
from  the  most  conservative  section  of  the 
trades  union  movement  in  this  country  and  is 
based  upon  the  co-partnership  of  the  State 
and  organized  labor  in  this  important  branch 
of  economic  administration.  Of  course,  the 
defenders  of  the  old  order  of  things,  with 
characteristically  futile  indignation,  invoke 

56 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

the  red  specter  of  Bolshevism  to  frighten  us. 
They  learn  nothing  from  experience;  other- 
wise they  would  know  that  they  are  more  ef- 
fective promoters  of  Bolshevism  than  any  of 
the  Bolsheviki.  The  Bourbons  of  industry 
are  the  most  powerful  propagandists  of  Bol- 
shevism. 

The  psychology  of  the  demand  for  indus- 
trial democracy  is  not  difficult  to  understand : 
Human  beings  in  civilized  States  find  them- 
selves associated  in  three  great  forms  of  asso- 
ciation. First,  they  are  associated  in  their 
political  relations.  Governments  are  de- 
veloped and  laws  enacted  for  the  purpose  of 
regulating  these  relations.  Independent  of 
these  political  relations,  which  are  largely  in- 
voluntary, there  are  numerous  voluntary 
groupings,  into  churches,  clubs,  societies, 
lodges,  and  the  like.  Finally,  there  are  the 
economic  relations,  which  concern  them  as 
consumers  and  producers.  In  the  main,  these 
relations  are  involuntary  and  arbitrarily  im- 
posed. They  are  far  more  important  than 
all  other  relations  combined  and  far  more  ex- 
tensive. The  average  man  makes  fewer  con- 
tacts with  the  laws  and  machinery  of  the  State 
than  with  the  economic  factors  of  his  life. 
More  than  half  the  time  he  is  awake  is  spent 

57 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

in  labor  of  some  kind  and  that  .covers  only 
one  side  of  his  economic  interest.  As  a  con- 
sumer, the  whole  period  of  his  life,  including 
his  leisure  and  his  sleep,  is  profoundly  af- 
fected by  the  operations  of  economic  laws  and 
by  the  economic  status  in  which  he  is  placed. 

Now,  experience  has  taught  mankind  that 
democracy  is  the  best  principle  upon  which 
to  base  the  government  of  human  relations. 
For  these  relations  which  are  voluntary  in 
their  nature,  and  which  are  always  amenable 
to  freely  chosen  direction,  democracy  is  the 
form  of  control  almost  universally  chosen.  In 
the  modern  world  men  rarely  base  clubs, 
lodges,  churches  or  similar  voluntary  organ- 
izations upon  anything  but  democratic  self- 
government.  In  the  political  domain  men 
have  everywhere  consistently  moved  away 
from  autocratic  forms  of  government  towards 
democratic  forms.  Nowhere  do  we  find  an 
exception  to  this  rule:  however  imperfect 
democracy  may  be,  it  brings  about  a  far 
greater  degree  of  satisfaction  than  any  auto- 
cratic, oligarchic,  or  hierarchical  form  of  gov- 
ernment has  ever  done.  That  is  the  pragmatic 
test.  No  other  is  of  any  value. 

With  the  lessons  of  experience  so  uniformly 
emphatic  in  favor  of  democracy,  it  would  be 

58 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

extremely  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  greatest 
and  most  vital  sphere  of  human  activity  could 
permanently  remain  under  forms  of  control 
which  experience  in  every  other  sphere  of  life 
has  led  men  to  abandon.  The  hours  and  con- 
ditions of  labor,  the  methods  and  rates  of  re- 
muneration, the  degree  of  personal  freedom 
during  labor,  the  things  to  be  made  and  the 
terms  and  conditions  upon  which  they  may 
be  had — these  and  a  host  of  matters  of  vital 
concern  to  every  normally  useful  life  cannot 
safely  be  left  to  any  direction  less  repre- 
sentative than  the  collective  whole.  In  what- 
ever form  it  may  be  embodied,  the  principle 
of  democracy  must  inevitably  be  applied  to 
the  economic  life  of  the  world. 


IX 


The  old  school  of  Socialists  was  char- 
acterized by  a  very  simple  and  direct  psychol- 
ogy. It  idealized  the  political  state  and  re- 
lied upon  it  as  the  logical  agency  for  the 
socialization  of  industry.  This  view  is  now 
as  antiquated  and  obsolete  as  the  laissez  faire 
individualism  against  which  it  was  directed. 
Not  only  by  Syndicalists  and  Bolshevists,  but 
by  the  most  moderate  and  constructive  advo- 

59 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

cates  of  social  democracy,  the  political  State 
is  now  held  to  be  unfitted  for  the  complex 
technical  work  of  industrial  organization  and 
management.  Government  industrial  enter- 
prise as  we  know  it  has  succeeded  on  the 
whole  even  less  well  than  capitalist  industrial 
enterprise.  It  has  been  extravagant  and  un- 
economical; it  has  developed  a  formidable 
bureaucracy;  it  has  been  marked  by  favor- 
itism and  other  evils  attendant  upon  political 
influence. 

In  proportion  as  government  becomes  in- 
creasingly concerned  with  economic  func- 
tions the  inefficiency  of  the  present  method  of 
government  by  representation  of  groups  in 
geographical  areas  becomes  increasingly  ev- 
ident. There  is  a  growing  consciousness  of 
the  necessity  of  securing  representation  of 
technical  knowledge  and  experience,  of  func- 
tional representation,  in  short.  If  govern- 
ments are  to  own  and  operate  railroads,  mines, 
and  factories,  then  governments  must  be  com- 
posed of  men  who  possess  the  training  and  the 
technical  skill  necessary  to  operate  railroads, 
mines,  and  factories.  This  technical  equip- 
ment is  necessary  in  the  legislative  depart- 
ment of  government  almost  as  much  as  in  the 
administrative.  Men  who  are  ignorant  of 

60 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

the  practical  side  of  railroading  are  not  com- 
petent to  make  laws  governing  the  organiza- 
tion and  administration  of  railways.  The 
fact  that  a  man  lives  in  a  particular  geograph- 
ical area,  and  is  highly  popular  among 
his  neighbors,  is  no  sort  of  reason  for  giving 
him  power  to  determine  by  his  vote  how 
mines  shall  be  operated,  what  railroad  rates 
shall  be,  or  what  wages  shall  be  paid  to  ma- 
chinists. Still  less  does  it  justify  his  eleva- 
tion to  a  position  of  ultimate  authority  over 
the  real  technical  directors,  with  power  to 
impose  upon  these  policies  which  they  know 
to  be  impracticable  and  even  disastrous. 

When  we  found  ourselves  in  a  state  of  war, 
and  in  need  of  the  highest  efficiency  in  the  or- 
ganization of  our  economic  resources  of 
which  we  were  capable,  we  did  not  attempt 
to  rely  upon  individuals  representing  groups 
ranged  in  geographical  areas  merely.  In- 
stead, we  pressed  into  the  service  men  who 
represented  technical  knowledge  and  func- 
tional ability.  As  a  result  we  gained  im- 
mensely in  efficiency.  The  men  of  technical 
knowledge  and  skill  brought  to  our  govern- 
ment a  degree  of  practical  ability  never  be- 
fore witnessed.  Temporarily,  we  linked  to- 
gether geographical  and  functional  repre- 

61 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

sentation.  Normally,  however,  we  go  on 
leaving  the  making  of  laws  for  a  complex  in- 
dustrial system  in  the  hands  of  men  who  know 
little  or  nothing  of  industry;  men  whose  train- 
ing often  peculiarly  unfits  them  for  the  task 
of  legislating  for  an  industrial  society.  We 
have  in  the  present  House  of  Representatives, 
for  example,  two  hundred  and  sixty  lawyers, 
more  than  a  majority  of  the  entire  member- 
ship. No  one  is  likely  to  claim  that  this  in 
any  manner  represents  the  economic  life  of 
the  country,  or  that  these  lawyers  owe  their 
place  in  Congress  to  any  special  knowledge 
of  our  industrial  problems.  The  least  useful 
and  important  of  professions,  economically 
considered,  dominates  our  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives because  so  many  lawyers  are  "good 
mixers"  and  glib  talkers,  and  because  the  prac- 
tice of  law  and  activity  in  politics  can  be 
united  in  a  way  that  is  not  possible  in  the  case 
of  any  other  profession. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  a  system  of 
government  much  more  efficient  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  life  and  needs  of  the  nation. 
Such  a  system,  instead  of  being  based  upon 
the  representation  of  geographically  defined 
units,  would  be  based  upon  units  composed  of 
occupational  groups.  Those  engaged  in  a 

62 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

given  professional  group  would  be  directly 
represented  by  some  member  of  that  group; 
those  in  an  industrial  group  would  be  sim- 
ilarly represented  from  within  their  own 
group.  This  would  in  practice  amount  to 
the  inclusion  in  the  electorate  of  every  useful 
member  of  society,  only  the  parasitically  idle 
being  excluded.  This  assumes,  of  course,  the 
inclusion  of  those  who  are  idle  only  as  the  re- 
sult of  old  age  or  physical  disability.  The  dif- 
ficulties in  the  way  of  instituting  so  great  a 
reform  would  be  very  great,  but  it  is  im- 
probable that  they  would  be  as  formidable  as 
now  appears.  It  is  the  universal  experience 
that  the  difficulties  of  instituting  new  reforms 
are  greatly  exaggerated.  Theoretically,  at 
any  rate,  such  a  system  as  suggested  makes 
possible  a  much  more  competent,  as  well  as 
more  representative,  type  of  government. 
Now,  is  there  any  good  reason  for  believing 
that  it  would  be  lacking  in  the  flexibility 
necessary  to  give  opportunity  for  the  expres- 
sion of  conflicting  ideals  and  theories  of  gov- 
ernment, such  as  collectivism  versus  indi- 
vidualism, conservatism  versus  radicalism, 
and  so  on? 

The  demand  for  such  a  change  in  the  form 
of  government  as  will  give  direct  representa- 

63 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

tion  to  the  workers,  and  the  technical  profes- 
sions, upon  all  legislative  and  administrative 
bodies  having  anything  to  do  in  connection 
with  the  economic  system,  is  not  based  upon 
Bolshevism  and  has  nothing  in  common  with 
the  dogmatic  hatred  of  the  State  of  the  old 
Anarchism.  It  arises  from  the  widespread 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  political  State 
based  upon  geographical  considerations  can- 
not be  an  efficient  agent  for  the  management 
of  industry  on  democratic  lines.  But  because 
Bolshevism  appeared  as  a  political  force  in 
conjunction  with,  or  as  an  incident  of,  Soviet 
government,  and  because  Anarchism,  Syn- 
dicalism, and  Bolshevism  all  aim  at  substi- 
tuting government  by  labor  and  professional 
councils  for  the  existing  form  of  government, 
there  is  great  confusion  here.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  reactionaries,  the  Bourbons,  de- 
nounce as  Bolshevism  every  expression  of  the 
new  view.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Bolsheviki 
themselves,  naturally  desirous  of  appearing  to 
be  much  stronger  than  they  are,  aim  to  create 
the  impression  that  belief  in  government  by 
occupational  groups  and  Bolshevism  are 
synonymous  and  identical.  Doubtless  there 
are  many  well-meaning  persons  who  regard 
themselves  as  Bolsheviki  when  in  fact  they 

64 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

are  not,  but  simply  believers  in  an  industrial 
form  of  government  for  an  industrial  society. 

What  is  now  termed  Soviet  government  was 
clearly  foreshadowed  in  1869,  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  Proudhon,  as  can  be  seen  from  the 
resolutions  discussed  by  the  Internationale. 
It  was  far  more  clearly  and  comprehensively 
promulgated,  however,  in  1905,  in  the  City 
of  Minneapolis,  in  an  address  by  an  Amer- 
ican Socialist,  the  late  Daniel  De  Leon,  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  I.  W.  W.  Lenine  him- 
self has  placed  upon  record  his  appreciation 
of  the  manner  in  which  De  Leon  anticipated 
the  conception  of  Soviet  government,  and  the 
justice  of  this  is  made  manifest  by  the  follow- 
ing paragraph  from  De  Leon's  speech: 

"As  the  slough  shed  by  the  serpent  that  im- 
mediately appears  in  its  new  skin,  the  political 
state  will  have  been  shed,  and  society  will 
simultaneously  appear  in  its  new  adminis- 
trative garb.  The  mining,  the  railroad,  the 
textile  industries,  down  or  up  the  line,  each 
of  these,  regardless  of  former  political  bound- 
aries, will  be  the  constituencies  of  the  new  cen- 
tral authority Where  the  General  Exec- 
utive Board  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World  will  sit  there  will  be  the  nation's 
capital.  Like  the  flimsy  card  houses  that 

65 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

children  raise,  the  present  political  govern- 
ments of  countries,  of  states,  aye,  of  the  City 
on  the  Potomac  herself,  will  tumble  down, 
their  places  taken  by  the  central  and  sub- 
ordinate administrative  organs  of  the  Na- 
tion's industrial  forces."1 

The  social  ideal  of  the  I.  W.  W.  which  De 
Leon  thus  expounded,  is  very  clear  and 
precise.  We  perceive  the  outline  of  a  new 
social  order,  an  industrial  State,  in  which  the 
union  of  the  workers,  closely  federated,  will 
manage  all  industries,  regulate  wages,  work- 
ing conditions,  prices,  production,  consump- 
tion, and  all  other  economic  interests.  They 
are  also  to  administer  the  general  affairs  of 
society,  making  and  executing  all  necessary 
laws  and  regulations.  There  will  be  no  other 
government  than  this.  What  is  here  described 
is  Soviet  government  pure  and  simple,  for 
Soviet  government  is  simply  the  Russian 
term  for  government  by  councils  of  labor 
unions.  Equally,  the  I.  W.  W.  ideal  is  the 
ideal  of  Syndicalism  as  prescribed  by  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Syndicalist  movement  in  France 
and  Italy. 

'Daniel  De  Leon,  The  Preamble  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of 
the  World,  pp.   38-39. 

66 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

There  is  a  very  striking  likeness  between 
our  I.  W.  W.  and  Bolshevism,  distinguishing 
sharply  between  the  latter  and  mere  belief  in 
Soviet  government.  The  psychological  char- 
acteristics are  identical.  There  is  the  same 
contempt  for  the  rule  of  the  majority;  the 
same  dependence  upon  energetic  and  daring 
minorities;  the  same  reliance  upon  the  coup 
de  force  to  set  up  a  proletarian  dictatorship. 
In  the  American  movement  as  in  the  Russian 
there  is  a  glorification  of  the  proletariat.  In 
the  one  movement  as  in  the  other  emphasis  is 
laid  upon  the  glaring  and  obvious  antago- 
nisms of  interest  separating  the  extremes  of 
society,  while  the  numerous  common  in- 
terests, the  social  bonds  already  developed,  are 
ignored  as  of  no  consequence.  Common  to 
both  is  a  narrow  interpretation  of  the  word 
"labor,"  which  results  in  the  basing  of  their 
policies  upon  the  interests  and  energies  of 
manual  workers  only.  In  the  jargon  of  Bol- 
shevism the  petty  farmer  who  cultivates  his 
own  land  and  owns  his  own  tools,  and  per- 
haps employs  a  boy  or  man  to  assist  him,  be- 
longs not  to  the  "working-class"  but  to  the 
"bourgeoisie."  In  the  literature  of  the  I.  W. 
W.  the  same  distinction  appears.  Mr.  Austin 
Lewis  has  even  insisted  that  skill  is  property, 

67 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

that  the  skilled  workman  does  not  therefore 
belong  to  that  proletariat  which  is  destined  to 
rule  the  world.  Finally,  in  both  the  Bolshe- 
vist movement  of  Russia  and  the  I.  W.  W. 
movement  of  this  country  there  is  a  reckless 
and  brutal  spirit  of  hatred  which  is  directed 
not  against  capitalism  merely,  but  against  in- 
dividual capitalists.  There  are  differences  in 
minor  details,  due  to  the  differences  in  eco- 
nomic development  of  the  two  countries,  but 
these  are  relatively  insignificant.  A  common 
purpose,  a  common  method  and  a  common 
psychology  unites  the  two  movements. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  thor- 
oughness with  which  we  have  failed  to  under- 
stand the  rise  and  growth  of  the  I.  W.  W.  in 
this  country.  Because  some  of  the  leaders  of 
the  movement  have  been  obviously  influenced 
by  the  theoretical  and  tactical  teachings  of  cer- 
tain French  and  Italian  Syndicalists,  and  be- 
cause of  a  very  clearly  defined  identity  of 
aim  and  method,  it  has  become  a  common 
habit  to  regard  the  I.  W.  W.  as  of  foreign  in- 
spiration and  origin.  Now,  it  is  true  that 
there  are  many  foreigners  in  the  I.  W.  W., 
many  aliens  who  are  wholly  unassimilated, 
but  it  is  not  less  true  that  the  origins  of  the 
movement  were  notably  American,  quite  as 

68 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

much  so  as  the  origins  of  either  the  Repub- 
lican Party  or  the  National  Security  League, 
for  example. 

The  I.  W.  W.  grew  out  of  the  Western 
Federation  of  Miners  and  the  experience  of 
that  most  militant  labor  organization  is  the 
most  bitter  and  brutal  industrial  struggles  in 
our  history.  In  the  great  series  of  strikes  in 
Colorado  and  Idaho  there  was  much  inhuman 
savagery  on  both  sides.  Much  has  been  said 
and  written  of  the  crimes  committed  on  the 
side  of  the  strikers,  but  little  indeed  of  those 
crimes,  both  more  terrible  and  more  nu- 
merous, committed  on  the  other  side.  In  the 
mining  districts  of  Colorado  especially,  there 
was  set  up  a  lawless,  brutal,  oppressive  dic- 
tatorship of  the  capitalists  as  infamous  as  it 
was  foolish  and  shortsighted.  It  respected  no 
law  and  no  lawful  rights,  which  stood  in  the 
way  of  its  rapacious  ambitions.  By  its  op- 
pressive and  terroristic  policies  it  developed 
the  desperate  recklessness  and  unreasoning 
hate  from  which  the  I.  W.  W.  was  destined  to 
grow. 

X 

To  understand    the    spread    of  Bolshevist 
agitation  and  sympathy   among   a   very  con- 

6  69 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

siderable  part  of  the  working-class  in  this 
country,  we  must  take  into  account  the  fact 
that  its  logical  and  natural  nucleus  is  the  I. 
W.  W.  It  is  necessary  also  to  emancipate  our 
minds  from  the  obsession  that  only  "ignorant 
foreigners"  are  affected.  This  is  not  a  true 
estimate  of  either  the  I.  W.  W.  or  the  Bolshe- 
vist propaganda  as  a  whole.  There  are  in- 
deed many  of  this  class  in  both,  but  there  are 
also  very  many  native  Americans,  sturdy,  self- 
reliant,  enterprising,  and  courageous  men. 
The  peculiar  group  psychology  which  we  are 
compelled  to  study  is  less  the  result  of  those 
subtle  and  complex  factors  which  are  com- 
prehended in  the  vague  term  "race,"  than  of 
the  political  and  economic  conditions  by 
which  the  group  concerned  is  environed. 

Naturally,  our  greatest  interest  lies  in 
understanding  why  Americans  who  appear  to 
be  entirely  typical  in  all  other  respects,  de- 
velop such  a  passionate  hatred  for  and  dis- 
trust of  the  laws,  institutions,  and  customs 
which  are  so  highly  regarded  by  their  fellows 
of  all  classes.  Why  should  native-born  Amer- 
icans, taught  in  our  schools,  nurtured  under 
our  traditions,  be  so  hostile  to  the  juridical 
system  we  have  regarded  as  nearly  ideal,  the 
bulwark  of  personal  freedom  and  the  guar- 

70 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

antee  of  equality  before  the  law?  Why 
should  men  of  our  soil  and  our  speech,  the 
soil  and  speech  of  Lincoln,  be  so  contemp- 
tuous of  those  ideals,  usages,  and  traditions 
we  seek  to  summarize  in  the  term  "Amer- 
icanism?" The  alien  worker  whose  intel- 
lectual and  moral  experience  is  rooted  else- 
where, in  lands  where  autocratic  rule  has 
made  government  synonymous  with  des- 
potism, belongs  to  a  separate  category  and 
must  be  separately  studied.  His  impulses  and 
his  mental  processes  are  different. 

The  typical  native  born  I.  W.  W.  member, 
the  "Wobbly"  one  frequently  encounters  in 
our  mid-Western  and  Western  cities,  is  very 
unlike  the  hideous  and  repulsive  figure  con- 
jured up  by  sensational  cartoonists.  He  is 
much  more  likely  to  be  a  very  attractive  sort 
of  man.  Here  are  some  characteristics  of  the 
type:  Figure  robust,  sturdy  and  virile;  dress 
rough  but  not  unclean ;  speech  forthright,  de- 
liberate and  bold;  features  intelligent,  frank 
and  free  from  signs  of  alcoholic  dissipation; 
movements  slow  and  leisurely  as  of  one  averse 
to  over-exertion.  There  are  thousands  of 
"Wobblies"  to  whom  the  specifications  of  this 
description  will  apply.  Conversation  with 
these  men  reveals  that,  as  a  general  rule,  they 

71 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

are  above  rather  than  below  the  average  in 
sobriety.  They  are  generally  free  from  family 
ties,  being  either  unmarried  or,  as  often  hap- 
pens, wife-deserters.  They  are  not  highly  ed- 
ucated, few  having  attended  any  school  be- 
yond the  grammar  school  grade.  Many  of 
them  have,  however,  read  a  great  deal  more 
than  the  average  man,  though  their  reading 
has  been  curiously  miscellaneous  in  selection 
and  nearly  always  badly  balanced.  Theology, 
philosophy,  sociology,  and  economics  seem  to 
attract  most  attention.  In  discussion — and 
every  "Wobbly"  seems  to  possess  a  passion  for 
disputation — men  of  this  type  will  manifest  a 
surprising  familiarity  with  the  broad  outlines 
of  certain  theological  problems,  as  well  as  with 
the  scriptural  texts  bearing  upon  them.  It  is 
very  likely  to  be  the  case,  however,  that  they 
have  only  read  a  few  popular  classics  of  what 
used  to  be  called  Rationalism — Paine's  Age 
of  Reason,  Ingersoll's  lectures  in  pamphlet 
form,  and  Haeckel's  Riddle  of  the  Universe, 
are  typical.  A  surprisingly  large  number  can 
quote  extensively  from  Buckle's  History  of 
Civilization  and  from  the  writings  of  Marx. 
They  quote  statistics  freely — statistics  of 
wages,  poverty,  crime,  vice,  and  so  on — gen- 
erally derived  from  the  radical  press  and  im- 

72 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

plicitly  believed   because   so   published  with 
what  they  accept  as  adequate  authority. 

So  far,  we  see  in  the  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  characteristics  of  this  type  only  whole- 
some, normal  American  workingmen  of  morf 
than  average  intelligence  and  force  of  char- 
acter. Their  most  marked  peculiarity  is  the 
migratory  nature  of  their  lives.  Whether  this 
is  self-determined,  a  matter  of  temperament 
and  habit,  or  due  to  uncontrollable  factors,  it 
is  largely  responsible  for  the  contempt  in 
which  they  are  popularly  held.  It  naturally 
brings  upon  them  the  reproach  and  resent- 
ment everywhere  visited  upon  "tramps"  and 
"vagabonds."  They  rarely  remain  long 
enough  in  any  one  place  to  form  local  attach- 
ments and  ties  or  anything  like  civic  pride. 
They  move  from  job  to  job,  city  to  city,  state 
to  state,  sometimes  tramping  afoot,  begging 
as  they  go;  sometimes  stealing  rides  on  rail- 
way trains,  in  freight  cars — "side  door  Pull- 
mans"— or  on  the  rods  underneath  the  cars. 
Frequently  arrested  for  begging,  trespassing 
or  stealing  rides,  they  are  often  the  victims  of 
injustice  at  the  hands  of  local  judges  and  jus- 
tices. The  absence  of  friends,  combined  with 
the  prejudice  against  vagrants  which  every- 
where exists,  subjects  them  to  arbitrary  and 

73 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

high-handed  injustice  such  as  no  other  body 
of  American  citizens  have  to  endure.  More- 
over, through  the  conditions  of  their  existence 
they  are  readily  suspected  of  crimes  they  do 
not  commit:  it  is  all  too  easy  for  the  hard- 
pushed  police  officer  or  sheriff  to  impute  a 
crime  to  the  lone  and  defenseless  "Wobbly," 
who  frequently  can  produce  no  testimony  to 
prove  his  innocence,  simply  because  he  has  no 
friends  in  the  neighborhood  and  has  been  at 
pains  to  conceal  his  movements.  In  this  man- 
ner the  "Wobbly"  becomes  a  veritable  son  of 
Ishmael,  his  hand  against  the  hand  of  nearly 
every  man  in  conventional  society.  In  par- 
ticular he  becomes  a  rebel  by  habit,  hating  the 
police  and  the  courts  as  his  constant  enemies. 
Nor  are  these  the  only  evil  fruits  of  the  life 
of  the  migratory  workers.  Even  more  ter- 
rible and  disastrous  in  its  consequences  is  the 
fact  that  they  are  virtually  excluded  from  cit- 
izenship, not  because  of  any  crime  committed 
but  simply  because  they  are  doing  what  is, 
for  society  as  now  organized,  absolutely  neces- 
sary. Doubtless  the  great  majority  of  these 
men  are  temperamentally  predisposed  to 
the  unanchored,  adventurous,  migratory 
existence  which  they  lead.  Boys  so  con- 
stituted run  away  to  sea,  take  jobs  with 

74 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

traveling  circuses,  or  enlist  as  soldiers.  The 
type  is  familiar  and  not  uncommon.  Such  in- 
dividuals cannot  be  content  with  the  prosaic, 
hum-drum,  monotonous  life  of  regular  em- 
ployment. As  a  rule  we  do  not  look  upon  this 
trait  in  boy  or  man  as  criminal. 

The  nature  of  our  industrial  life  and  the 
manner  of  its  development  are  such  that 
masses  of  such  workers  are  imperatively  re- 
quired. England  has  needed,  and  still  needs, 
her  army  of  "navvies,"  the  laborers  employed 
in  making  railways,  docks,  canals,  and  so 
forth;  men  who  move  from  job  to  job,  in- 
habit cheap  lodging  houses,  and  know  no 
permanent  abode.  We  need,  and  shall  con- 
tinue to  need,  until  we  radically  change  our 
ways,  great  masses  of  "floating  labor."  Har- 
vesting of  the  wheat  crop  in  the  Northwest 
calls  for  an  army  of  men  who  can  only  be 
temporarily  employed.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  harvesting  of  the  fruit  crop  in  California 
and  elsewhere.  The  army  finds  its  way  in- 
to the  wheat  belt,  self-mobilized  as  it  were, 
and  later  finds  its  way  into  the  fruit-belt.  The 
lumber  industry  moves  from  place  to  place 
like  an  immense,  ravaging  monster-locust. 
It  enters  a  well-timbered  district,  remains  a 
little  while  and  leaves  a  ragged,  dreary,  for- 

75 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

lorn  waste.  It  builds  camps  instead  of  cities. 
It  does  not  want  citizens,  men  with  civic 
ideals  and  responsibilities.  On  the  contrary, 
it  wants  men  content  to  be  camp-dwellers, 
content  to  live  under  abnormal  conditions, 
without  home  and  family  life. 

Some  future  day  may  bring  about  such  a  re- 
organization of  our  industrial  life,  such  a  de- 
gree of  standardization,  as  will  make  such 
"floating  labor,"  with  its  abnormal  living  con- 
ditions, unnecessary.  In  the  meantime,  how- 
ever, it  is  necessary  and  its  disappearance 
would  be  attended  by  economic  disaster.  Yet 
we  penalize  the  men  who  provide  this  labor 
by  excluding  them  from  the  privileges  of  cit- 
izenship. This  we  do  indirectly,  but  ef- 
fectively, by  making  the  right  to  vote,  in  na- 
tional as  well  as  local  elections,  dependent 
upon  residential  qualifications  which  the 
migratory  worker  can  rarely  meet.  A  fixed 
residence  for  a  definite  period  of  time,  per- 
sonal appearance  for  registration  on  fixed 
dates  in  order  to  vote,  forfeiture  of  the  right 
to  vote  as  a  result  of  moving  within  certain 
periods  of  time,  even  in  pursuit  of  employ- 
ment— these  are  the  devices  which  make  of 
our  migratory  workers  a  disfranchised  class, 
a  proletariat  of  a  peculiarly  helpless  kind. 

76 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

Many  a  hardworking,  intelligent  American, 
who  from  choice  or  from  necessity,  is  a 
migratory  worker,  following  his  job,  never  has 
an  opportunity  to  vote  for  State  legislators, 
for  Governor,  for  Congressman  or  President. 
He  is  just  as  effectively  excluded  from  the 
actual  electorate  as  if  he  were  a  Chinese 
coolie,  ignorant  of  our  customs  and  our 
speech. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  such  conditions 
prove  prolific  breeders  of  Bolshevism  and 
similar  "isms."  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if 
it  were  otherwise.  We  have  no  right  to  ex- 
pect that  men  who  are  so  constantly  the  vic- 
tims of  arbitrary,  unjust,  and  even  brutal 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  our  police  and  our 
courts  will  manifest  any  reverence  for  the  law 
and  the  judicial  system.  Respect  for  majority 
rule  in  government  cannot  fairly  be  demanded 
from  a  disfranchised  group.  It  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  the  old  slogan  of  Socialism, 
"Strike  at  the  ballot-box  1"  the  call  to  lift  the 
struggle  of  the  classes  to  the  parliamentary 
level,  for  peaceful  settlement,  becomes  the 
desperate,  anarchistic  I.  W.  W.  slogan, 
"Strike  at  the  ballot-box  with  an  ax!"  Men 
who  can  have  no  family  life  cannot  justly  be 
expected  to  bother  about  school  administra- 

77 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

tion.  Men  who  can  have  no  home  life,  but 
only  dreary  shelter  in  crowded  work-camps 
or  dirty  doss-houses  are  not  going  to  bother 
themselves  with  municipal  housing  reforms. 
In  short,  we  must  wake  up  to  the  fact  that, 
as  the  very  heart  of  our  problem,  we  have  a 
Bolshevist  nucleus  in  America  composed  of 
virile,  red-blooded  Americans,  racy  of  our 
soil  and  history,  whose  conditions  of  life  and 
labor  are  such  as  to  develop  in  them  the 
psychology  of  reckless,  despairing,  revengeful 
Bolshevism.  They  really  are  little  concerned 
with  theories  of  the  State  and  of  social  de- 
velopment, which  to  our  Intellectuals  seem 
to  be  the  essence  of  Bolshevism.  They  are 
vitally  concerned  only  with  action.  Syn- 
dicalism and  Bolshevism  involve  speedy  and 
drastic  action — hence  the  force  of  their  ap- 
peal. In  the  name  of  democracy  we  have  per- 
mitted oppression,  and  now  the  oppressed,  re- 
volting, menace  democracy.  The  American 
workingman  who  is  a  Bolshevik  or  a  sym- 
pathizer with  Bolshevism,  is,  in  all  except 
rare  and  exceptional  instances,  a  victim  of 
great  and  real  wrongs  which  have  steeped  his 
consciousness  in  hatred  and  bitter  resentment. 


78 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 
XI 

With  the  exception  of  the  migratory  occu- 
pations, in  which  Americans  are  largely  em- 
ployed, the  I.  W.  W.  has  gained  its  principal 
following  among  foreign-speaking  workers  of 
recent  immigration,  mainly  those  belonging  to 
the  so-called  "unskilled  occupations."  Long 
ago,  John  Stuart  Mill  pointed  out  the  ab- 
surdity of  this  designation,  and  directed  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  most  of  such  occupa- 
tions require  a  considerable  degree  of  skill 
and  ability  of  one  kind  or  another.  Farm 
laborers  are  always  classified  as  unskilled 
laborers,  for  example,  but  whoever  has  tried 
to  plow  a  field,  or  to  sow  a  field  of  oats,  knows 
that  these  are  tasks  requiring  very  much  skill. 
The  old  and  quite  inaccurate  term  survives, 
however,  despite  its  absurdity,  because  it 
serves  the  useful  purpose  of  distinguishing  be- 
tween occupations  which  require  a  consider- 
able period  of  apprenticeship  and  those  which 
can  be  reasonably  well  performed  by  any  per- 
son of  normal  intelligence  after  very  brief 
demonstration  and  experiment. 

To  supply  labor  of  this  kind  we  have  in  re- 
cent years  depended  largely  upon  immigra- 
tion from  European  nations.  Millions  of  im- 

79 


migrants,  mostly  peasants,  have  poured  into 
our  great  industrial  centers  from  Russia,  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, Italy,  Greece,  the  Balkan 
countries,  and  Spain.  They  have  been  drawn 
to  our  country  by  the  overpowering  lure  of 
the  magic  word  "America,"  with  its  promise 
of  wealth  and  of  freedom  from  tyrannical  and 
despotic  government,  from  social  and  religious 
persecution,  from  militarism,  and  from  never- 
ending  poverty.  Some  have  had  the  ad- 
vantages of  elementary  education  and  possess 
some  appreciation  of  the  great  problems  of 
modern  society.  Others  have  been  illiterate 
and  ignorant,  wholly  incapable  of  intelligent- 
ly appreciating  the  tasks  confronting  a  demo- 
cratic society. 

In  our  feverish  efforts  to  insure  an  abun- 
dant supply  of  labor  we  have  not  made  any 
distinction  between  literate  and  illiterate.  So 
long  as  the  needs  of  the  immediate  present 
were  met  we  have  cared  nothing  for  the  fu- 
ture. We  have  permitted  our  factories  and 
our  cities  to  be  filled  with  people  of  alien 
speech,  and  have  not  deemed  it  necessary  to 
take  steps  to  place  them  in  possession  of  that 
most  elementary  requisite  for  normal  and  ef- 
ficient life,  the  language  of  the  land.  We  have 
permitted  these  people  to  be  crowded  into 

80 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

slums  where  they  are  herded  like  cattle;  to  be 
victimized  and  cruelly  exploited  by  the  cun- 
ning and  unscrupulous;  to  be  made  indus- 
trial slaves.  Until  the  great  war  revealed  the 
peril  of  these  conditions  and  shocked  us  into 
doing  something  about  it,  we  ignored  these 
things.  We  took  little  trouble  to  see  that  jus- 
tice was  done  to  the  immigrant  laborers  and 
their  families;  we  cared  nothing  for  what 
they  thought;  we  were  ignorant  of  and  indif- 
ferent to  their  thoughts  and  their  feelings. 
When  such  workers  from  time  to  time  re- 
volted and  protested  in  the  only  manner  avail- 
able to  them,  or  that  they  comprehended,  too 
commonly  they  were  repressed  and  silenced 
in  the  most  brutal  manner.  Their  contacts 
with  our  police  and  our  courts  have,  far  too 
often,  left  these  aliens,  naturalized  and  un- 
naturalized  alike,  wondering  wherein  Amer- 
ican democracy  was  freer  or  juster  than  Old 
World  autocracy. 

For  reasons  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  con- 
sider in  detail  here,  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  and  its  affiliated  unions  have  not 
been  very  successful  in  organizing  this  un- 
skilled proletariat  of  alien  origin.  The  critics 
of  the  American  movement  charge  that  its 
leaders  have  practically  ignored  these  un- 

81  * 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

skilled  workers.  The  leaders  thus  accused 
deny  the  charge:  they  point  to  numerous  at- 
tempts which  have  ended  in  comparative  fail- 
ure; they  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  creation 
of  stable  and  strong  organizations  of  unskilled 
workers  is  always  and  everywhere  exceedingly 
difficult  because  supply  is  normally  greater 
than  demand,  especially  where  there  is  a  con- 
stant reinforcement  by  immigration,  and  that 
the  task  becomes  immeasurably  more  difficult 
when  there  are  many  nationalities  and  races, 
divided  by  barriers  of  language,  religion,  cus- 
toms, and  racial  antagonisms.  Finally,  they 
point  to  the  fact  that  the  employers  in  the  in- 
dustries most  affected  have  made  it  a  special 
policy  to  break  up  the  unions  of  such  work- 
ers, resorting  to  every  brutal  and  corrupt 
means  to  achieve  this  end. 

Whatever  the  cause  of  the  failure  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  the  result  has 
been  the  opportunity  of  the  I.  W.  W.  which 
the  latter  has  seized  and  used.  It  cannot  be 
said  to  have  been  more  successful  than  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  in  creating  en- 
during organizations.  This  is  evidenced  by 
the  fact  that  in  those  industrial  centers  in 
which  its  greatest  battles  have  been  fought— 
McKee's  Rocks,  Lawrence,  Paterson — no 

82 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

strong  and  lasting  organization  has  resulted. 
The  leaders  of  the  I.  W.  W.  say,  indeed,  that 
this  is  not  their  aim.  They  do  not  want  to 
create  enduring  organizations,  they  say,  but 
only  temporary  ones  for  strike  purposes.  They 
do  not  aim  to  create  organizations  which  will 
negotiate  with  the  employers  and  from  time 
to  time  adjust  difficulties  and  make  agree- 
ments. They  want  war  and  disorder,  not 
peaceable  agreement  and  orderly  develop- 
ment. Thus  it  is  when  the  flames  of  discon- 
tent arise  that  the  I.  W.  W.  comes  upon  the 
scene,  drawn  by  the  scent  of  strife  as  buzzards 
are  drawn  to  carrion.  It  is  true,  as  one  of  the 
best  known  of  our  labor  leaders  has  said,  that 
"I.  W.  W.  employers  are  mainly  responsible 
for  I.  W.  W.  unions."  Agitators  of  the  I.  W. 
W.  do  not  make  the  discontent :  they  only  give 
it  leadership.  There  is  a  lesson  for  America 
in  the  saying  of  an  English  statesman,  "Fools 
talk  of  agitators,  there  is  but  one — injustice." 
To  this  great  mass  of  oppressed  and  discon- 
tented alien  workers  the  I.  W.  W.  brings  a 
message  of  extreme  plausibility,  welcome  and 
easily  accepted  because  it  promises  precisely 
what  is  desired.  The  unions  belonging  to  the 
Federation  of  Labor  are  bitterly  assailed  for 
caring  for  the  interests  of  particular  crafts  at 

83 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  expense  of  the  entire  working-class.  They 
are  accused,  not  without  justice,  of  capitalistic 
methods  and  motives,  as,  for  example,  when 
they  exact  high  membership  fees.  When 
these  alien  workers  are  told  that  the  entrance 
fees  which  some  American  unions  have 
charged  have  ranged  from  twenty-five  to  five 
hundred  dollars,  that  the  glass-blowers'  or- 
ganization, for  example,  some  years  ago 
charged  an  entrance  fee  of  five  hundred  dol- 
lars and  seriously  contemplated  a  special  en- 
trance rate  of  one  thousand  dollars  for  "for- 
eigners," they  are  easily  inspired  with  distrust 
of  the  whole  movement.  By  playing  upon 
their  sufferings  it  is  easy  to  inspire  the  belief 
that  our  democracy,  from  which  they  ex- 
pected so  much,  is  a  sham  and  no  better  than 
autocracy.  Bitter  denunciations  of  national- 
ism, and  emotional  appeals  to  a  crude  doc- 
trine of  universalism,  miscalled  international- 
ism, find  ready  response. 

Such,  briefly  indicated,  are  the  conditions 
and  the  experiences  which,  before  the  war 
and  the  revolutionary  uprisings  in  Europe, 
had  already  produced  in  this  country  a  great 
body  of  discontent  and  despair  of  democracy, 
seeing  no  hope  in  anything  but  Syndicalism. 
The  revolutionary  movements  in  Russia  and 

84 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

throughout  Europe,  arising  out  of  war  con- 
ditions, have  given  new  names  to  the  old  ideas, 
kindled  new  hopes  of  success  and  brought  im- 
mense reinforcements  of  numbers  and  of 
courage  and  faith.  But  the  central  fact  of 
cardinal  importance  is  that  before  the  war  and 
before  the  Russian  Revolution,  in  the  normal 
times  and  conditions  of  peace,  we  had  already 
developed,  in  the  manner  described,  the 
nucleus  of  a  formidable  and  potentially  dan- 
gerous Bolshevist  movement.  War  and  war's 
aftermath  have  increased  the  army  of  revolt. 
It  is  not  so  difficult  after  all  to  understand  the 
psychology  of  this  army  of  revolt. 


XII 


In  modern  society,  war,  when  it  is  exten- 
sive and  long  continued,  is  a  great  breeder  of 
revolutionary  discontent,  particularly  in  those 
countries  which  do  not  have  the  actual  pres- 
ence of  overpowering  invading  armies  to 
force  the  population  into  abnormal  solidarity. 
The  great  loss  of  human  life,  the  large  num- 
bers of  maimed  and  broken  men,  heavy  taxa- 
tion, profiteering,  inflated  prices,  privation, 
forced  military  service,  disrupted  homes, 
interrupted  business,  unfamiliar  and  harsh 

7  85 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

military  restrictions  in  civil  life — these  and  a 
host  of  other  evils  incidental  to  modern  war- 
fare produce  a  sort  of  war  neurosis.  Ir- 
ritability of  temper  and  querulousness  become 
common.  The  people  are  more  easily  moved 
to  riotous  demonstrations.  Workers  in  fac- 
tories and  workshops  are  more  ready  to  quar- 
rel than  in  normal  times.  Strikes  frequently 
become  epidemic,  the  most  trivial  incidents 
sufficing  to  bring  about  strikes  of  considerable 
magnitude.  The  disturbing  influence  of  "war 
nerves"  has  been  observed  in  many  countries 
during  the  past  five  years. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  conditions  pro- 
duced by  the  war  should  lead  to  the  develop- 
ment in  this  country,  especially  among  cer- 
tain groups  of  wage-earners,  of  a  psycho- 
logical predisposition  to  Bolshevism,  a  highly 
developed  suggestibility  arising  from  nervous 
over-tension.  While  it  is  fortunately  true,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  in  no  country  were  there 
so  many  ameliorative  factors,  to  act  as  social 
sedatives  as  it  were,  it  is  equally  true  that,  as 
a  result  of  our  great  racially  diversified  poly- 
glot, unassimilated  population,  and  the  pe- 
culiar conditions  which  governed  their  im- 
migration to  this  country,  we  were  subject  to 
peculiarly  strong  irritants.  Not  even  in  that 

86 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

most  cosmopolitan  and  racially  heterogeneous 
of  European  countries,  Austria,  could  there 
be  found  greater  racial  heterogeneity,  with 
resulting  diversity  of  racial  sympathies  and 
personal  ties,  than  existed  here  in  these  United 
States.  Millions  of  people  either  born  in 
enemy  countries  or  sons  and  daughters  of  par- 
ents who  were  so  born,  having  many  ties  of 
kindred  with  those  countries,  near  relatives 
and  dear  friends  fighting  in  their  armies,  were 
forced  to  practice  extraordinary  emotional 
repression.  Psychic  overstrain,  long  con- 
tinued, became  the  biggest  factor  in  the 
psychology  of  millions  of  people. 

To  the  ordinary  emotional  strain  of  anxiety 
and  fear  borne  by  all  with  loved  ones  in  the 
righting  ranks,  or  with  great  material  interests 
at  stake,  for  an  appreciable  part  of  our  pop- 
ulation there  was  added  the  terrible  strain  of 
compulsory  repression  of  natural  emotions 
and  normal  sympathies.  Among  our  wage- 
earners  this  overstrain  fell,  in  large  part,  upon 
those  who  by  reason  of  recent  arrival,  lack 
of  assimilation  to  the  new  land  and  its  ways, 
defective  education  and,  consequently,  of  self- 
discipline,  were  least  fitted  to  hear  it.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  attitude  toward  militarism 
and  conscription:  The  average  American 

87 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

born  citizen  of  American  born  parentage  has 
grown  up  with  no  knowledge  of  militarism 
as  that  term  is  understood  in  Europe.  He  has 
regarded  it  as  one  of  the  evils  of  the  Old 
World  attendant  upon  monarchical  and 
dynastic  rule.  In  a  general  way,  he  has  al- 
ways known  that  in  case  of  need  every  able- 
bodied  citizen  could  be  drafted  to  bear  arms 
for  the  defense  of  the  nation.  But  this  pos- 
sibility has  seemed  remote  and  compulsory 
military  service  only  an  incident  in  life,  at 
most.  He  has  never  felt  the  pressure  of 
militarism  as  a  system,  causing  him  to  want 
to  migrate  to  some  other  land  to  escape  as 
from  a  deadly  plague.  He  has  never  borne 
the  burden  of  crushing  taxation  for  the  up- 
keep of  a  great  military  caste.  He  has  never 
known  what  it  meant  to  live  in  a  land  whose 
politics  and  governmental  policies  were  gov- 
erned by  considerations  of  military  strategy. 
He  has  known  nothing  of  the  brutal  despotism 
inseparable  from  such  a  system.  He  has  not 
realized  the  meaning  of  a  power  in  the  State 
arbitrarily  taking  millions  of  young  men  and 
compelling  them,  against  their  will,  to  give 
some  of  the  best  years  of  their  life  to  fit  the 
plans  of  an  autocratically,  or  bureaucratically, 
governed  military  machine. 

88 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

But  all  these  things,  which  to  the  American 
of  native-parentage  were  only  a  terrible 
phantasy,  as  little  real  as  the  warfare  of  the 
gods  in  the  mythologies,  were  tragically  real 
to  millions  of  our  people.  It  was  to  escape 
from  this  monster,  and  to  save  their  children 
from  its  relentless  maws,  that  millions  of 
them  endured  the  privations,  the  sacrifices, 
and  the  painful  sundering  of  ties  of  family 
and  kindred,  to  establish  themselves  in  the 
New  World,  where  the  monster  did  not  dwell, 
and  where,  as  they  believed,  he  could  not 
come.  All  that,  and  more  than  that,  they 
felt  implied  in  American  democracy.  They 
found  here  no  great  standing  army;  no  ar- 
rogant military  caste;  no  subordination  of 
politics  and  government  to  military  strategy; 
no  crushing  burden  of  taxation  for  a  military 
machine  so  vast  that  it  bore,  an  Atlantean 
load,  upon  the  shoulders  of  every  laborer,  and 
cast  a  shadow  over  every  cradle. 

Then  came  our  entrance  into  a  war  more 
extensive  and  more  terrible  than  any  in  all 
the  previous  history  of  mankind.  The 
theater  of  the  war  was  thousands  of  miles 
away.  Its  origins  were  obscure — obscured  by 
much  discussion  and  dispute.  The  greatest 
pacific  nation  in  the  world  set  itself  to  the 

89 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

task  of  militarizing  itself,  of  creating  the 
greatest  military  machine  which  its  human 
and  material  resources  made  possible.  We  di- 
rected our  genius  and  our  might  from  the 
arts  of  peace  to  the  arts  of  war.  Our  mighty 
engines  of  industry  groaned  under  the  new 
urge  and  produced  the  ghastly  implements  of 
death  and  destruction.  Conscription  was 
ordered  and  the  fairest  and  strongest  of  our 
sons  were  sternly  called  from  their  homes  to 
wear  khaki  uniforms,  to  bear  arms,  and  to 
cross  the  seas  as  warriors.  As  if  some  evil 
magician  had  willed  to  change  the  New 
World  and  make  it  like  the  Old  World,  our 
streets  and  public  places  echoed  military 
marching;  a  great  load  of  taxation  was  im- 
posed upon  the  people;  our  liberties  of  move- 
ment, of  assemblage,  of  speech,  and  of  pub- 
lication were  narrowed  and  restricted  by  rules 
born  of  military  strategy. 

Tragically  terrible  as  all  this  was,  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  accepted  it  with  quiet 
courage,  confident  that  it  would  not  long  en- 
dure. There  was  an  American  tradition  to 
sustain  that  faith.  Little  more  than  half  a 
century  before  there  had  been  conscription 
and  military  rule,  so  alien  to  our  democratic 
ideals,  but  when  the  emergency  was  passed 

90 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

and  the  great  task  completed  the  nation  threw 
off  the  military  incubus  as  a  man  throws  off 
an  old  coat,  and  returned  to  the  normal  ways 
of  industry  and  peace.  So  doubtless,  it  would 
be  again.  Sustained  by  this  faith,  and  ac- 
cepting as  true  the  splendid  assurances  of  high 
democratic  purpose  made  by  President  Wil- 
son in  phrases  of  inspired  sublimity,  the  na- 
tion accepted,  with  remarkable  unanimity, 
the  theory  that  the  necessities  of  the  war  re- 
quired and  justified  the  temporary  surrender 
of  valued  liberties.  The  people  were  ready 
and  willing  to  make  this  sacrifice  to  the  noble 
idealism  which  gave  to  the  war  the  character 
of  a  great  spiritual  adventure. 

Even  the  leaders  of  liberal  and  radical 
opinion,  with  very  few  exceptions,  steeled 
their  minds  and  hearts  to  acquiescence  in  these 
dangerous  expedients.  Many  of  them  felt, 
doubtless,  that  there  was  great  danger  of 
creating,  while  fighting  for  democracy 
abroad,  an  intolerable  despotism  at  home. 
Doubtless  many  foresaw  that  the  liberties  thus 
surrendered  in  a  fervor  of  patriotism  would 
be  hard  to  restore,  involving  a  long  and  bit- 
ter struggle.  But  they  saw  no  hope  for 
democratic  ideals  here  or  elsewhere  in  the 
world  unless  and  until  the  greatest  military 

91 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

empire  in  the  world  was  broken  and  its  power 
to  crush  the  liberties  of  the  world  destroyed. 
So  these  men  and  women  accepted  the  logic 
of  their  faith  and  with  the  rest  of  the  nation 
clad  their  souls  in  khaki  and  fought  for  free- 
dom for  all  mankind. 

But  there  were  millions  among  us  whose 
position  was  infinitely  more  tragic  and  dif- 
ficult. How  terrible  their  disappointment 
and  despair  must  have  been  when  they  saw 
arise  here  in  the  Promised  Land  into  which 
they  had  so  lately  entered  the  very  monster  to 
escape  from  which  they  had  left  the  Old 
World!  It  was,  in  fact,  much  harder  to  bear 
the  burdens  of  war  and  military  necessity  in 
America  than  it  would  have  been  to  bear  sim- 
ilar or  heavier  burdens  in  the  lands  from 
which  they  came.  The  new  order  which  came 
into  being  with  such  cyclonic  rapidity  was 
more  than  a  physical  burden :  it  was  the  death 
of  a  cherished  ideal  passionately  loved — the 
ideal  of  America  as  a  land  free  from  the  ter- 
rible scourage  of  militarism.  Here,  as  in 
Russia,  as  in  Austria,  as  in  Germany,  the  State 
took  the  flower  of  the  young  manhood  of  the 
nation  to  make  soldiers — "cannon  fodder." 
Here,  as  in  those  lands  from  which  they  had 
torn  themselves,  industry  was  diverted  to 

92 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

military  ends.  Here,  too,  the  soldiers'  trade 
was  now  idealized,  and  here,  too,  a  great  sys- 
tem of  espionage  and  sedition  laws  and  mil- 
itary regulations  put  an  end  to  the  freedom 
"to  know,  to  utter,  and  to  argue  freely  accord- 
ing to  conscience."  Moreover,  the  fierce  out- 
burst of  national  patriotism  seemed  to  pro- 
duce here  the  bitter  and  terrible  hatred  of 
whole  peoples  which  they  had  seen  bear  such 
bitter  and  deadly  fruit  in  the  Old  World. 

When  we  remember  these  things  it  is  not 
a  matter  for  wonder  that  Bolshevism  found  in 
such  minds  a  fertile  soil.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  understand,  or  even  to  sympathize  with,  the 
psychological  state  thus  produced.  The  whole 
experience  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  such 
people  tended  to  make  difficult,  and  even  ab- 
solutely impossible,  understanding  and  ac- 
ceptance of  our  role  in  the  great  war.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  extremely  easy  to  ac- 
cept the  view  that  the  idealism  expressed  by 
the  President  and  other  exponents  of  the  na- 
tion's purpose  and  policy  was  hypocritical; 
that  the  Government  had  declared  war  at  the 
behest  of  capitalists  who  wanted  war  for  the 
sake  of  profit;  that  militarism  was  to  be  per- 
manently fastened  upon  the  people.  It  was 
easy  to  embrace  the  crude  universalism,  call- 

93 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

ing  itself  internationalism,  which  proposed  to 
end  all  forms  of  nationalism  and  all  national 
rivalries  and  animosities.  They  were  of  the 
working-class,  conscious,  as  every  intelligent 
person  must  be,  of  a  great  divergence  of  in- 
terest between  themselves  and  the  capitalist 
class  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  and  of  a 
commonality  of  interests  with  all  workers 
everywhere.  But  they  were  blind  to  the 
parallel  phenomenon  of  interests  common  to 
all  classes.  They  saw  here  the  same  gulf 
separating  rich  and  poor,  the  same  extremes 
of  wealth  and  poverty.  They  saw  that  here 
in  America,  just  as  in  every  other  land,  the 
wage-earner  must  struggle  with  fierce  in- 
tensity to  obtain  the  requisites  of  a  decent  ex- 
istence. Surely,  the  real  struggle  of  the  mo- 
ment, the  one  war  that  was  worthy,  was  the 
class  war— the  workers  of  all  lands  against 
the  masters  of  bread  and  life. 

In  pre-war  times,  the  fat  days  of  peace,  we 
had  given  little  heed  to  the  vast  problem  of 
assimilating  the  hordes  of  laborers  drawn 
from  all  over  the  world.  We  exploited  them 
but  did  little  else.  We  did  not  trouble  to 
understand  them,  to  make  them  understand 
us.  We  cared  only  that  they  came  in  num- 
bers large  enough  and  remained  docile 

9+ 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

enough.  Perhaps  it  was  because  our  ideals 
were  time-worn,  and  we  ourselves  cynical 
concerning  them,  that  we  hardly  tried  to  in- 
spire them  with  any  vision  of  America  as  a 
nation  striving  to  attain  an  ideal  of  com- 
munism of  opportunity.  The  richest  and 
rarest  gift  they  had  to  bestow,  a  passionate 
yearning  for  democratic  freedom  and  justice 
and  a  fierce  hatred  of  despotism  and  injustice 
—gifts  more  lastingly  valuable  than  their 
labor,  even — we  contemptuously  ignored.  Too 
late,  when  the  war  came,  we  realized  that 
there  was  peril  in  the  presence  in  our  midst 
of  masses  who,  even  when  naturalized,  were 
not  fully  American;  who  lacked  that  deeply 
rooted  faith  in  our  institutions,  and  that  un- 
shakable trust  in  our  purpose,  which  are  es- 
sential to  the  highest  and  most  enduring 
patriotism. 


XIII 


The  sense  of  peril  thus  suddenly  thrust  in- 
to our  consciousness,  together  with  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  brutality  and  unscrupulous  in- 
triguing and  plotting  of  the  enemy,  de- 
veloped a  highly  hysterical  policy  of  repres- 
sion. In  all  too  many  cases  we  became  as 

95 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

brutally  savage  as  the  Prussians.  The 
savagery  of  many  of  the  sentences  imposed  by 
our  courts  for  violation  of  the  laws  relating 
to  sedition  was  equalled  only  by  their 
stupidity.  We  failed,  all  too  often,  to  dis- 
tinguish between  actual  obstruction  of  our 
military  enterprise,  whether  designed  or  ac- 
cidental, and  the  simple  expression  of  honest 
doubts,  fears,  and  reservations  which  honest 
men  may  entertain  without  treason  or  malice 
in  their  hearts.  Earnest  and  loyal  liberals  of 
many  schools  of  thought  witnessed  these 
blundering  travesties  of  justice  and  democ- 
racy with  heavy  hearts.  They  knew  that 
no  surer  method  could  be  devised  for  foster- 
ing the  thing  called  Bolshevism,  which  arises 
from  unfaith  in  democracy.  They  knew  that 
such  sentences  fell  upon  harmless  and  in- 
nocent people  as  often  as  upon  those  who  were 
dangerous  and  guilty.  And  they  knew  that 
every  persecution  of  this  kind  made  it  harder 
for  millions  of  honest  men  and  women  in  our 
own  and  allied  nations  to  believe  in  our  dem- 
ocratic intentions. 

For  utterances  far  less  seriously  critical 
of  our  war  policy  than  many  that  were  freely 
made  in  the  parliaments  of  our  allies,  and 
even  of  our  enemies,  men  and  women  were 

96 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

condemned  to  long  terms  of  imprisonment, 
In  the  great  State  of  New  York,  an  American, 
said  to  be  a  lineal  descendant  from  one  of  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
in  a  heated  informal  argument  which  took 
place  in  a  lunch  wagon,  was  alleged  to  have 
said  that  the  Government  was  rotten;  that 
many  of  its  officials  were  corrupt;  that  he 
would  rather  be  jailed  than  conscripted  to 
fight,  and  that  he  was  a  Socialist.  It  can 
hardly  be  argued  that  from  these  utterances 
any  serious  impairment  of  our  military  effort 
could  result.  Thoughtful  men  must  believe 
that  such  incidents  could  well  be  ignored; 
that  the  force  of  opinion  against  him  was  over- 
whelming. In  the  event  of  his  actually  re- 
sisting conscription  if  and  when  drafted,  that 
offense  could  be  dealt  with  readily  enough. 
But  he  was  actually  sentenced  to  ten  years' 
imprisonment  and  the  sentence  is  being  served! 
In  Iowa  a  man  opposed  to  conscription  cir- 
culated a  leaflet  opposing  the  re-election  of 
the  Congressmen  who  voted  for  that  measure. 
He  was  sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  twenty 
years!  For  writing  to  a  Kansas  City  news- 
paper the  statement  "No  government  which 
is  for  the  profiteers  can  also  be  for  the  people, 
and  I  am  for  the  people  while  the  govern- 

97 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY. 

ment  is  for  the  profiteers,"  Mrs.  Stokes  was 
sentenced  to  ten  years'  imprisonment,  upon 
the  theory  that  such  a  statement  obstructed  re- 
cruiting, and  caused  or  was  intended  to  cause 
insubordination  and  mutiny  in  the  military 
forces.  That  her  declaration  actually  had  any 
of  these  results  is  extremely  improbable. 
That  her  views  could  be  far  more  effectively 
combated  by  reasoned  argument  and  demon- 
stration by  the  government  of  the  untruth  of 
her  charge  than  by  imprisonment  is  more  than 
probable.  That  the  sentence  was  violently  ex- 
cessive and  unjust  is  certain.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  the  equally  indefensible  sentences 
imposed  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Debs  and  many 
others. 

Thousands  of  liberals  and  radicals  who  had 
devoted  themselves  to  the  common  task  of  win- 
ning the  war,  reeled  under  the  shock  of  these 
savage  sentences — so  much  more  severe  than 
those  meted  out  to  similar  offenders  in  other 
lands,  including  Germany.  To  remain  silent 
and  unprotesting  in  the  face  of  wrongs  so 
grievous  seemed  like  a  desertion  of  their 
principles  and  ideals,  like  treason  to  con- 
science. Yet  they  could  make  no  effective 
public  protest  without  giving  encouragement 
and  strength  to  the  anti-war  agitators  and  aid 

98 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

and  comfort  to  the  enemy.  It  was  a  position 
involving  intense  mental  and  spiritual  strug- 
gle and  torture.  They  realized  the  im- 
perative need  of  a  manifestation  of  unbroken 
solidarity.  They  could  not  cry  out,  what  in- 
deed they  felt,  that  in  our  democratic  sys- 
tem it  was  all  too  easy  and  too  frequent  for 
tyranny  and  oppression  to  rule.  They  could 
only  decide  to  "carry  on"  while  making  such 
protests,  and  such  efforts  to  bring  about  a  more 
sane  and  worthy  policy,  as  could  be  made 
without  endangering  the  solidarity  and  morale 
of  the  nation.  Beyond  this  they  could  only 
trust  that  President  Wilson  would  seize  an 
early  opportunity  to  end  an  intolerable  condi- 
tion by  granting  a  general  amnesty,  as  soon  as 
hostilities  ceased,  or  even  earlier,  applying  to 
all  persons  imprisoned  for  the  expression  of 
opinions  hostile  to  the  war  and  to  our  mil- 
itary policies,  to  all  offenders  against  the  sedi- 
tion and  espionage  laws  rather  than  those 
guilty  of  acts  of  violence,  directly  com- 
municating with  the  enemy  or  service  of  any 
kind  in  the  pay  of  the  enemy. 

The  noble  and  generous  spirit  in  which 
President  Wilson  had  defined  our  aims  and 
ideals  warranted  the  utmost  confidence  that 
he  would  not  fail  to  seize  the  opportunity  to 

99 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

prove  the  nation  magnanimous;  that  he  at 
least  would  sympathetically  comprehend  the 
moral  overstrain  which  had  led  to  technical 
violations  of  the  law,  and  the  rankling  sense 
of  injustice  which  must  inevitably  result  from 
vindictiveness.  No  one  who  has  ever  dis- 
cussed such  matters  with  him  can  doubt  that 
he  earnestly  desires  to  temper  justice  with  hu- 
man sympathy  and  understanding.  But  the 
President  found  himself  caught  in  the  grip  of 
relentless  circumstance,  struggling  under  a 
burden  of  incredible  heaviness,  and,  unfor- 
tunately for  America  and  for  his  own  fame  as 
a  great  liberal  statesman-idealist,  the  golden 
opportunity  was  missed.  Neither  the  signing 
of  the  Armistice  nor  the  signing  of  the  Treaty 
of  Peace  brought  the  amnesty  which  political 
wisdom  and  democratic  idealism  alike  sug- 
gested. 

It  is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  extent 
to  which  the  savage  vindictiveness  of  our 
treatment  of  such  offenders  against  the  sedi- 
tion and  espionage  laws  has  contributed  to 
the  growth  of  Bolshevism.  It  is  likewise  im- 
possible to  measure  the  harmful  effects  of 
that  vindictiveness  upon  the  morale  of  our 
Allies  during  the  war.  In  the  summer  of  1918 

in  England,  France,  and  Italy  it  was  the  ex- 

100 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

perience  of  the  present  writer  to  be  continually 
called  upon  to  explain  to  puzzled  minds  how 
a  nation  could  possibly  be  sincere  in  its  pro- 
fessions that  it  was  fighting  to  "make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy"  while  permitting 
the  most  astounding  and  vindictive  sentences, 
such  as  were  frequently  reported  in  the  press. 
The  anti-war  Socialists,  the  bourgeois 
pacifists,  and  the  reactionary  pro-German 
groups  made  this  the  theme  of  a  very  in- 
fluential propaganda.  Even  the  most  active 
and  energetic  supporters  of  the  war  among 
the  Socialists  and  Laborites,  were  depressed 
by  the  inconsistency  of  our  practice  with  our 
professions.  It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  no  possible  agitation  which  the  anti-war 
agitators  could  have  carried  on  in  this  coun- 
try could  have  so  depressed  the  morale  of  the 
masses,  and  of  their  most  thoughtful  leaders, 
as  did  the  news  of  the  severity  and  injustice 
with  which  we  punished  men  and  women  for 
silly,  bombastic  talk. 

Rarely  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and 
never  in  the  memory  of  living  men,  has  any 
individual  possessed  such  an  extraordinary  in- 
fluence over  the  minds  of  masses  of  people  in 
many  lands  as  President  Wilson  possessed  dur- 
ing the  last  year  of  the  war.  No  one  who  was 

8  101 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

privileged  to  come  into  close  contact  with  the 
civil  population  in  England,  Belgium, 
France,  and  Italy,  or  with  the  common  troops 
of  those  countries,  could  fail  to  realize  the  re- 
markable trust  in  President  Wilson,  the  ready 
and  eager  response  to  and  faith  in  his  utter- 
ances. War-wearied  men  and  women  crushed 
with  grief  and  despair  rallied  under  the 
magic  spell  of  his  words,  which  they  cried  in 
the  streets  and  in  the  trenches  with  almost 
fanatical  enthusiasm.  Statesmen,  diplomatists, 
politicians,  great  capitalists,  and  high  military 
officers  might  be  cold  and  cynical,  but  the 
masses  were  inspired.  In  an  Italian  city  an 
immense  audience  of  workingmen,  weary  of 
the  war,  desperate  from  privation  and  suf- 
fering, sullen,  distrustful,  and  ready  for  peace 
at  any  price,  was  transformed  by  the  simple 
mention  of  President  Wilson  and  became  at 
once  a  mass  inspired  by  faith  and  enthusiasm 
which  were  invincible.  The  President  had 
spoken  the  thoughts,  the  hopes,  and  the  ideals 
with  which  the  souls  of  peoples  were  bur- 
dened. To  his  intellectual  perceptions  and 
judgments  there  was  added  a  spiritual  force, 
a  prophetic  vision  and  utterance  possessed  by 
no  other  leader  of  men  in  any  of  the  war- 
Stricken  nations.  Even  the  enemy  prisoners 

J02 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

in  the  great  concentration  camps  thrilled  with 
the  passion  of  a  new  hope  when  they  read  his 
words.  Here  was  no  mere  trick  of  rhetoric, 
but  the  rarer  gift  of  prophetic  fire. 

Could  the  President  have  realized  the 
meaning  of  the  worshipful  affection  in  which 
he  was  held,  and  the  source  of  it,  he  could 
have  dealt  Bolshevism  in  every  land  a  blow 
far  more  harmful  to  it  than  armies  of  mil- 
lions could  inflict.  Great  as  his  service  to 
mankind  at  the  Peace  Conference  admittedly 
was,  supremely  great  as  his  achievements  must 
be  regarded  when  measured  by  the  traditional 
standards  of  statesmanship,  it  must  be  admit- 
ted that  he  proved  unequal  to  the  greatest  op- 
portunity which  destiny  placed  before  him. 
In  the  supreme  moment  of  his  life  and  of  the 
history  of  the  modern  world,  he  seemed  to 
lose  something  vital,  something  of  that 
prophetic  greatness  which  he  had  shown  in 
the  dark  days  of  tragic  strife.  Perhaps  he 
lost  it  when  he  decided  to  be  one  of  the 
plenipotentiaries,  to  sit  at  the  conference  table 
where  compromise,  intrigue,  and  barter  were 
inevitable.  Perhaps  he  might  have  retained 
it  if  he  had  gone  to  Versailles  saying,  "The 
United  States  will  not  permit  her  repre- 
sentatives to  sit  in  closed  rooms!  they  will  only 

103 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

confer  in  public  and  in  the  hearing  of  all 
mankind.  Nor  will  the  United  States  be 
party  to  any  policy  which  by  its  severity  will 
keep  alive  the  sense  of  hatred  among  those 
who  have  been  our  enemies."  Granted  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  German  people  for  the 
war,  and  not  merely  the  former  rulers  of  Ger- 
many, the  fact  remains  that  the  unborn  gen- 
eration cannot  be  held  responsible.  When 
President  Wilson  seemed  to  descend  to  the 
plane  of  the  old  order  of  statesmanship,  to 
methods  so  nearly  akin  to  those  of  Baron 
Sonino,  M.  Clemenceau,  and  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  there  was  an  immediate  revulsion  of 
feeling,  a  great  wave  of  disappointment,  and 
Bolshevism  gained  new  strength. 

Similarly  the  failure  of  the  President  to 
proclaim  a  generous  spirit  as  the  one  fitting 
form  of  national  thanksgiving,  and  to  declare 
a  general  amnesty,  strengthened  Bolshevism 
in  this  country.  Those  of  his  fellow-country- 
men who  had  best  understood  and  most  ap- 
proved his  idealism  expected  that  the  Pres- 
ident would  have  eagerly  grasped  at  the  op- 
portunity to  exhort  the  nation  to  celebrate  the 
victory  by  a  return  to  democratic  ways  of  liv- 
ing. He  might  well  have  pointed  out  the  pro- 
found spiritual  crisis  which  the  war  brought 

104 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

to  many  sincere  American  citizens,  as  well  as 
to  many  unnaturalized  aliens;  that  while  the 
exigiencies  of  the  struggle  in  which  the  na- 
tion found  itself  made  necessary  severe 
repression,  with  the  coming  of  peace  the  old 
toleration  of  minority  opinion  should  be  re- 
stored. If  autocratic  and  despotic  monar- 
chical rulers  have  almost  invariably  cel- 
ebrated the  victories  of  their  armies  by  set- 
ting free  all  their  subjects  imprisoned  for  sedi- 
tion and  similar  offenses,  should  a  democracy 
be  less  generous  and  forgiving? 

The  leaders  of  American  Bolshevism  feared 
more  than  anything  else  that  President  Wil- 
son would  act  in  this  democratic  manner. 
There  was  nothing  which  he  could  do  so  in- 
jurious to  their  cause  as  to  proclaim  a  general 
amnesty.  By  so  doing,  he  would  have  robbed 
them  of  one  of  their  most  potent  appeals. 
These  Bolshevist  leaders  have  protested 
publicly  in  the  most  vociferous  manner  against 
the  severity  of  the  sentences  imposed  upon 
many  pacifists  and  anti-war  agitators,  and 
have  demanded  that  the  President  declare  an 
amnesty.  But  while  they  have  done  this  they 
have  hoped  that  the  President  would  turn 
a  deaf  ear  to  their  demand.  This  is  not  a 
statement  based  upon  conjecture,  but  a  simple 

105 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

statement  of  fact.  Immediately  after  the 
Armistice  was  signed,  the  present  writer  was 
asked  to  join  in  a  big  public  protest  against 
the  continued  imprisonment  of  the  men  and 
women  convicted  for  the  expression  of  anti- 
war sentiments  and  opinions,  and  a  demand 
for  immediate  general  amnesty.  It  was  pro- 
posed that  in  this  movement  a  number  of  well- 
known  Anarchists,  Syndicalists,  Bolsheviki, 
and  anti-war  Socialists  should  take  active 
part. 

To  this  invitation  the  writer  replied  by  set- 
ting forth  that  if  the  demand  for  such  action 
by  the  President  should  come  from  men  and 
women  whose  course  during  the  war  had  been 
so  hostile  and  so  contrary  to  the  heart  and  will 
of  the  nation,  it  would  be  exceedingly  difficult 
for  the  President  to  act  as  requested,  even 
though  he  might  be  very  anxious  to  do  so. 
On  the  other  hand,  such  a  request  coming 
from  a  body  of  men  and  women  of  unim- 
peachable loyalty,  who  had  given  conspicuous 
support  to  the  Government  during  the  war, 
would  be  easily  granted,  should  the  President 
so  desire.  The  reply  received  was  highly  in- 
structive, and  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the 
mental  processes  of  those  back  of  the  move- 
ment: "No  doubt  you  are  right.  The 

106 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

psychology  of  your  argument  is  sound.  It  is 
very  likely  that  if  your  method  should  be  fol- 
lowed the  amnesty  would  be  granted  at  once. 
But  in  that  case  the  whole  propaganda  value 
of  these  persecutions  will  be  lost  to  us.  We 
do  not  want  the  President  to  proclaim  a  gen- 
eral amnesty,  nor  to  pardon  any  of  the  pris- 
oners, unless  it  is  plainly  done  because  of  the 
menace  of  our  movement.  We  want  agitation 
far  more  than  we  want  amnesty." 

This  temper  is  easily  understood.  Men 
whose  stock  in  trade  is  incessant  protest  against 
grievances  real  or  imaginary  fear  more  than 
anything  else  under  the  sun  the  removal  of 
their  grievances.  "What  a  miserable  world 
it  would  be  if  there  were  no  misery  in  it,"  ex- 
claimed a  cynical  reformer.  Many  an 
earnest  would-be-savior  of  mankind  would  be 
very  unhappy  indeed  if  mankind  should 
actually  be  saved  after  all.  A  glimmering  of 
this  truth  occasionally  found  its  way  into  the 
official  mind.  At  the  time  of  the  acquittal  of 
Scott  Nearing,  an  important  official  in  the 
Department  of  Washington  said,  when  news 
of  the  verdict  was  received,  "Nearing  is  ac- 
quitted. Nearing  has  lost  and  we  have  won." 
Had  that  wisdom  governed  the  actions  of  the 
Department  of  Justice  in  relation  to  the 

107 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

recalcitrant  minority  during  the  war,  there 
would  be  fewer  sympathizers  with  Bol- 
shevism today. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that 
Bolshevism  is  the  madness  of  men  goaded  to 
desperation  and  despair  by  a  profound  sense 
of  injustice.  Every  form  of  oppression  and 
tyranny  feeds  its  flames.  No  display  of  force 
can  intimidate  or  crush  it.  Nothing  but  evil 
can  come  from  reliance  upon  brute  force  af- 
ter the  fashion  of  the  former  rulers  of  Rus- 
sia. There  is  only  one  force  which  can  kill 
Bolshevism,  namely,  justice.  A  democratic 
people  has  neither  the  right  nor  the  need  to 
place  its  dependence  upon'  any  other  force. 
A  Debs  in  prison  is  not  silenced  really.  What- 
ever there  was  of  error,  of  bitterness,  or  of 
peril  in  his  speeches  in  war  days,  reappears, 
magnified  many  thousandfold,  in  the  in- 
fluence which  radiates  from  his  prison  cell  to 
every  part  of  the  United  States.  To  place  the 
stigma  of  a  criminal  upon  men  like  Debs  is 
to  remove  the  stigma  from  crime  itself.  Men 
who  think  that  they  can  beat  Bolshevism  out 
of  the  heads  of  bewildered  and  misguided 
men,  or  that  they  can  imprison  its  spirit  in 
narrow  cells,  are  as  harsh  and  undemocratic 


108 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

in  their  souls,  and  as  ignorant  of  life,  as  ever 
any  czar  or  kaiser  in  history  was. 

Every  society  is  imperiled  in  which  there 
resides  a  class  steeped  in  misery,  hopeless,  be- 
lieving that  no  sort  can  be  for  the  worse.  The 
feeling  of  having  "nothing  to  lose,"  when  it 
is  held  by  any  considerable  number  of  per- 
sons, is  a  destructive  force  in  the  heart  of  so- 
ciety, so  much  dynamite  under  the  foundations 
of  the  social  order  ready  to  be  exploded  at  the 
first  opportunity  or  provocation.  History  is 
replete  with  impressive  examples  of  this 
truth.  When  one  considers  what  has  hap- 
pened in  Russia  since  March,  1917,  it  is 
natural  to  recall  the  terrible  results  of  the 
appeals  to  the  spirit  of  destruction  and  re- 
venge made  by  that  strange,  sinister  figure, 
Stenka  Razin,  who,  at  the  time  of  Catherine 
the  Great,  preached  violence,  looting,  and 
wanton  destruction  of  property.  Razin  had 
hosts  of  followers  all  over  the  land.  His 
propaganda  attained  the  dimensions  of  a 
formidable  crusade.  Many  thousands  of 
peasants  forsook  their  work  to  follow  and  obey 
him.  The  movement  kindled  intense  en- 
thusiasm and  seemed  destined  permanently  to 
ruin  Russia.  The  secret  of  Razin's  power  was 
the  poverty  and  despair  of  the  oppressed 

109 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

masses.  He  said  to  them:  You  are  hungry, 
but  there  is  food:  seize  the  food  and  possess 
it.  You  are  in  rags,  but  there  is  fine  raiment 
in  abundance:  seize  the  raiment  of  the  rich 
and  wear  it.  You  live  in  hovels  like  swine, 
but  there  are  mansions  and  palaces:  enter 
these  and  make  them  your  homes.  Drive  away 
the  idle  rich  who  live  upon  you  like  leeches. 
Strip  them  naked.  Take  all  they  have,  use 
what  you  can  and  destroy  the  rest.  Ply  the 
torch  freely.  Down  with  the  rich  idler.  This 
was  the  entire  substance  of  his  appeal, 
preached  with  fiery  zeal.  He  preached  not  a 
single  constructive  thought  or  measure.  But 
there  were  numerous  thousands  to  heed  his 
mad  counsels,  saying,  "There  is  nothing  else. 
We  have  nothing  to  lose;  things  cannot  be 


worse." 


XIV 


The  tragic  failure  of  the  governments  of 
the  Entente  nations  to  comprehend  the  situa- 
tion in  Russia,  and  their  uniformly  blunder- 
ing policy  in  dealing  with  that  unhappy  na- 
tion, have  sown  the  seeds  of  Bolshevism  broad- 
cast throughout  the  world.  It  is,  indeed,  al- 
most impossible  to  apply  the  word  "policy" 

no 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

to  a  course  of  action  so  erratic,  so  incon- 
sistent, and  so  unintelligible  as  that  of  the  Al- 
lied Nations  in  dealing  with  Russia.  In  this 
respect  the  record  of  our  own  Government  is 
neither  better  nor  worse  than  that  of  the  least 
democratic  and  progressive  of  our  allies.  Had 
it  been  their  purpose  to  strengthen  and  bolster 
up  the  regime  of  Lenine  and  Trotzky,  the  Al- 
lied Nations  could  not  have  reasonably  ex- 
pected to  have  accomplished  more  in  that  di- 
rection than  they  have  done. 

When  the  war  began  in  August,  1914,  the 
most  democratic  nations  of  Western  Europe 
found  themselves  yoked  to  the  infamous 
Romanov  dynasty.  It  was  inevitable  that  this 
alliance  should  bring  forth  much  criticism, 
doubt,  and  uneasiness.  Partnership  with  Rus- 
sia in  a  war  for  freedom  appeared  as  a  grim, 
ironic  jest.  Liberal  opinion  in  France  and 
Great  Britain  had  denounced  the  "Unholy 
Alliance"  when  it  was  first  announced.  There 
were  popular  demonstrations  of  mourning  in 
France,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
wearing  badges  of  crepe  to  symbolize  their 
sense  of  shame  and  humiliation.  Alliance 
with  the  Czar  was  a  thing  of  which  liberal 
minded  men  and  women  were  ashamed. 

Many  a  patriotic    Frenchman    draped  with 

111 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

somber  black  the  tricolor  of  France.  But 
when  the  war  actually  came  it  was  soon  seen 
that  the  alliance,  however  incongruous  it 
might  appear,  was  essential  if  France,  Bel- 
gium, and  Great  Britain  were  to  be  saved 
from  enslavement  to  Prussianism.  It  was 
evident  that  no  small  part  of  the  burden  of 
the  war  must  be  borne  by  Russia. 

While  this  reconciled  millions  of  English- 
men and  Frenchmen  to  a  partnership  which 
they  really  despised  and  feared,  there  were 
many,  including  some  of  the  best  and  most 
enlightened  citizens  of  both  countries,  who 
could  not  be  so  reconciled.  These  could  not 
seriously  believe  in  the  Czar  as  a  defender 
of  liberty  and  democracy.  They  could  not 
believe  that  Nicholas  II.  and  his  government 
would  fight  for  these  ideals,  or  for  any  pur- 
pose other  than  the  strengthening  of  the 
autocracy  of  the  Romanovs.  An  Allied  vic- 
tory meant,  and  could  only  mean,  a  triumph 
of  Czarism.  It  was  all  too  easy  and  plausible, 
therefore,  to  say  that  France  and  Great 
Britain  were  fighting  to  uphold  Czarism 
quite  as  much  as  they  were  fighting  to  destroy 
Prussian  militarism.  This  argument,  coupled 
with  denunciation  of  the  secret  treaties  with 


112 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

Russia,  played  a    large    part   in  the  pacifist 
agitation  in  France  and  Great  Britain. 

Those  Socialists  in  the  various  allied  coun- 
tries, including  Russia,  who  supported  the 
war  justified  themselves  by  an  appeal  to  the 
logic  of  Russia's  economic  life.  While  a 
definite  and  conclusive  triumph  by  the  Allied 
Nations  over  Germany  and  Austria,  in  which 
Russia  shared,  would  undoubtedly  strengthen 
the  Czar  and  Czarism,  that  would  be  only  a 
temporary  effort,  they  said.  In  the  long  run 
the  effect  of  such  a  victory  would  be  to  de- 
stroy the  economic  basis  of  Czarism.  That 
basis,  they  pointed  out,  was  feudalistic,  not 
capitalistic.  Czarism  was  possible  only  so 
long  as  Russia  remained  economically  back- 
ward and  undeveloped.  A  German  triumph 
would  prolong  that  condition,  because  it  was 
essential  to  the  German  scheme  that  Russia 
should  be  kept  in  a  state  of  economic  subjec- 
tion, a  fruitful  field  for  German  exploitation, 
a  country  furnishing  raw  materials  and  pur- 
chasing manufactured  goods,  not  herself  a 
manufacturing  country.  From  this  point  of 
view  it  was  inevitable  that  a  triumph  over 
Germany  would  liberate  Russia  and  lead  to  a 
great  economic  expansion,  incompatible  with 

113 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

feudalistic  Czarism  and  requiring  dem- 
ocratic constitutional  government. 

Of  the  soundness  of  this  view  there  can 
hardly  be  any  serious  question  on  the  part  of 
any  competent  person.  It  is  quite  easy  to  see 
why  it  failed  to  satisfy  those  who  were  con- 
cerned with  the  immediate  issue  of  the 
strengthening  of  Czarism:  they  saw  the  im- 
mediate evil  far  more  clearly  and  vividly  than 
they  could  see  the  remoter  outcome  of  a 
relatively  long  evolutionary  process.  On  the 
other  hand,  those  who  defended  the  associa- 
tion of  the  Western  nations  with  Russia,  and 
proclaimed  that  the  triumph  of  the  Allied  Na- 
tions would  be  of  great  benefit  to  Russian  de- 
mocracy, however  sincere  they  might  be  in 
their  views,  found  it  hard  to  defend  or  sup- 
port the  secret  treaties. 

When  the  Czar  was  dethroned  and  the  Rus- 
sian Republic  was  proclaimed,  in  March, 
1917,  the  allies  of  Russia  were  confronted  with 
a  golden  opportunity.  Had  there  been  in  the 
chancelleries  even  the  least  understanding  of 
the  great  revolutionary  movement  in  Russia, 
the  slightest  comprehension  of  the  psychology 
of  the  working-class  of  every  country,  they 
would  have  known  that  any  attempt  to  hold 
the  new  Russia  to  the  secret  treaties  entered 

114 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

into  with  the  old  regime  would  be  productive 
of  distrust  and,  possibly,  of  disaster.  Then 
was  the  time  for  a  display  of  candor  and  of 
confidence  in  the  masses.  It  was  the  time  for 
saying  to  the  new  Provisional  Government  of 
Russia:  "We  entered  into  certain  relations 
with  the  government  of  the  Czar,  and  made 
certain  agreements  in  the  common  interest  for 
the  effective  prosecution  of  the  war.  In  wel- 
coming the  new  government  which  you  have 
set  up  as  a  great  democratic  advance,  we 
recognize  that  it  would  be  unfair  to  expect 
you  to  be  governed  in  such  grave  matters  by 
agreements  entered  into  without  your  knowl- 
edge or  consent,  and  that  you  will  desire  some 
new  agreements  as  well  as  new  methods  of 
making  such  agreements.  To  this  end,  we, 
your  allies,  suggest  open  and  frank  conference 
with  a  view  to  making  any  necessary  revision 
of  existing  agreements."  That  there  would 
have  been  any  serious  or  dangerous  change  of 
military  arrangements  is  highly  improbable. 
The  reiteration  of  loyalty  to  the  Allied  cause 
by  the  Russian  leaders,  and  their  open  and 
sincere  rejection  of  the  idea  of  negotiations 
for  a  separate  peace,  afford  the  best  possible 
evidence  of  this.  But  the  statesmen  and 

diplomatists  of  the    Allied    Nations  lacked 

us 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

vision  and  missed  their  opportunity.  Because 
of  their  failure,  to  a  very  large  extent, 
Kerensky  was  doomed  to  defeat.  In  his  heroic 
efforts  to  keep  Russia  in  the  fight  he  had  to 
encounter  the  almost  unanswerable  argument : 
"These  treaties  were  made  by  the  Czar,  for 
the  purposes  of  Czarism.  Now  that  the  Czar 
is  overthrown  shall  we  still  be  governed  by 
him,  still  be  compelled  to  carry  out  his  pur- 
poses? They  are  not  our  treaties:  we  are  not 
bound  by  them." 

The  United  States  entered  into  the  war  af- 
ter the  overthrow  of  Czarism.  We  had  no 
compromising  military  or  political  agree- 
ments with  the  old  regime  when  we  became, 
in  fact  if  not  technically  and  formally,  Rus- 
sia's ally.  Without  any  sort  of  disloyalty  to 
the  other  nations  with  whom  we  became  allies 
in  the  same  way  and  at  the  same  time,  we 
could  have  assured  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment of  Russia  that  we  would  not  be  governed 
in  our  actions  by  any  agreements  made  by  the 
Czar's  government  with  any  other  govern- 
ments; that  we  were  ready  to  discuss  the  basis 
of  our.  co-operation  with  the  new  government 
of  Russia,  openly  as  befits  a  democracy  deal- 
ing with  another  democracy.  By  such  a 
declaration  we  could  have  struck  a  blow  at 

116 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

the  suspicion  and  unfaith  which  were  per- 
mitted to  grow  unchecked  until  the  tragedy 
of  Brest-Litovsk  became  inevitable.  We 
spoke  fair  and  even  generous  words  to  Rus- 
sia, but  we  failed,  just  as  France  and  Great 
Britain  had  failed,  to  act  democratically 
toward  the  new  democracy.  We  failed  to  see 
the  absurdity  of  trying  to  hold  the  new  Rus- 
sia by  the  words  of  the  old  Czar. 

Another  splendid  opportunity  came  to  the 
statesmen  of  the  Allied  Nations  when 
Kerensky,  whose  loyalty  to  the  Allies  was  un- 
impeachable, called  upon  them  to  make  a  re- 
statement of  war  aims.  It  was  impressively 
clear  that  Kerensky  was  being  pushed  to  the 
wall,  and  that  only  a  statement  of  war  aims 
free  from  imperalism,  vibrant  with  dem- 
ocratic idealism — such  a  statement  as  Pres- 
ident Wilson  later  made  on  more  than  one 
occasion  with  marvelously  good  effect — could 
hold  Russia  in  line  and  make  it  possible  for 
Kerensky  to  carry  on  his  great  work.  Failure 
to  meet  that  natural  request  was  as  criminal  as 
it  was  stupid.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  that 
even  had  such  a  statement  been  forthcoming 
the  military  debacle  of  Russia  would  have 
occurred.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  had  the  statement  been  forthcoming 

9  117 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  debacle  would  have  been  averted,  while 
without  the  statement  the  result  was  inevitable 
and  easy  to  foresee.  Failure  to  respond  to 
Kerensky's  appeal  was  equivalent  to  the  be- 
trayal of  a  brave  and  gallant  servant  of  the 
common  cause.  It  was  also  an  inexcusable 
neglect  of  a  great  strategic  opportunity  to  save 
the  Eastern  front. 

Outside  of  Russia  it  was  an  error  fraught 
with  results  scarcely  less  inimical  to  the  Al- 
lied cause.  In  every  country  of  the  Allied  Na- 
tions the  failure  to  make  instant  satisfactory 
response  to  Kerensky's  appeal  increased  the 
suspicion  and  distrust  of  every  profession  of 
idealism  felt  by  those  who  looked  upon  the 
war  as  a  capitalist-imperialist  enterprise.  Just 
as  in  Russia  the  soldiers  said  to  Kerensky, 
"They  do  not  make  the  statement  you  ask 
them  to  make,  because  they  dare  not  openly 
reveal  their  real  intentions  or  profess  to  share 
yours,"  so  in  Great  Britain,  in  France,  in 
Italy,  and  even  here  in  the  United  States,  the 
skeptics  expressed  similar  sentiments.  Lenine 
and  Trotzky  played  upon  the  suspicions  of 
the  soldiers  in  Russia,  and  as  similar  sus- 
picions gained  ground  here,  especially  among 
the  millions  of  working  people  of  Russian 

birth,  the  suspicions  were  played  upon  by  pro- 
ng 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

German,  Pacifist,  and  Bolshevist  propaganda. 
From  the  time  of  Kerensky's  appeal  to  the 
abortive  and  fatuous  negotiations  for  the 
Prinkipo  Conference,  and  even  afterward,  the 
Allies  made  practically  every  mistake  there 
was  any  opportunity  for  them  to  make,  and 
failed  to  utilize  opportunity  after  opportunity 
to  give  Russia  real  aid.  No  one,  in  all  prob- 
ability, seriously  believes  that  either  our  gov- 
ernment or  our  allies  ever  entertained  any 
hope  or  desire  to  restore  Czarism  in  Russia, 
but  our  conduct  often  laid  us  open  to  that  sus- 
picion. We  stumbled  along,  hesitating,  un- 
certain, vacillating,  and  contradictory  in  our 
ways.  One  day  we  seemed  to  encourage  the 
Bolsheviki ;  next  day  we  seemed  to  encourage 
their  opponents.  Well  does  the  venerable 
Catherine  Breshkovsky,  a  genuine  and  sincere 
lover  of  America,  say:  "Having  watched  the 
Allied  policy  in  Russia,  I  may  say  that  the 
policy  has  been  so  undefined  and  contradictory 
that  I  cannot  find  a  single  principle  which 
would  explain  it.  The  Allied  policy1  is  an 
enigma  to  us."  It  has  been  an  enigma  to  every 
student  of  Russian  affairs.  Its  one  outstand- 
ing result  has  been  to  strengthen  Bolshevism, 
not  only  in  Russia,  but  throughout  the  world. 

'Catherine   Breshkovsky,   Struggling   Russia,   issue   of   March 
29,  1919,  "The  Allies  in  Russia." 

119 


Finally,  if  we  would  understand  why  mil- 
lions of  people  in  all  lands  have  turned  away 
from  old  ideals,  old  loyalties,  and  old  faiths, 
to  Bolshevism,  with  something  of  the  passion 
and  frenzy  characteristic  of  great  Messianic 
movements,  we  must  take  into  account  the 
intense  spiritual  agony  and  hunger  which  the 
great  war  has  brought  into  the  lives  of  civ- 
ilized men.  The  old  gods  are  dead  and  men 
are  everywhere  expectantly  waiting  for  the 
new  gods  to  arise.  The  aftermath  of  the  war 
is  a  spiritual  cataclysm  such  as  civilized  man- 
kind has  never  before  known.  The  old  re- 
ligions and  moralities  are  shattered  and  men 
are  waiting  and  striving  for  new  ones.  It  is 
a  time  suggestive  of  the  birth  of  new  religions. 
Man  cannot  live  as  yet  without  faith,  without 
some  sort  of  religion.  The  heart  of  the  world 
today  is  strained  with  yearning  for  new  and 
living  faiths  to  replace  the  old  faiths  that  are 
dead.  Were  some  persuasive  fanatic  to  arise 
proclaiming  himself  to  be  a  new  Messiah,  and 
preaching  a  religion  of  action,  the  creation  of 
a  new  society,  he  would  find  an  eager,  soul- 
hungry  world  already  predisposed  to  believe. 

It  is  trite  to  say  that  the  recent  war  brought 

120 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

about  a  revolution  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
millions  of  men  and  women  in  all  lands.  This 
is  a  commonplace  of  our  daily  speech,  yet  few 
possess  the  insight  to  perceive  or  the  courage 
to  contemplate  the  vastness  of  the  revolution 
that  has  taken  place.  We  are  stunned,  be- 
wildered, and  benumbed  in  our  senses.  We 
are  as  men  who  walk  and  act  in  hypnotic 
sleep.  There  is  a  striking  analogy  between 
the  shell-shock  suffered  by  many  of  the  sol- 
diers during  the  war,  and  the  mental  and 
moral  state  in  which  millions  of  people  find 
themselves.  Just  as  the  victim  of  shell-shock 
may  outwardly  appear  normal  and  unin- 
jured, doing  many  things  in  the  usual  way,  yet 
subject  to  subtle  amnesias  and  other  func- 
tional inhibitions,  so  countless  thousands  of 
people  throughout  the  civilized  world,  out- 
wardly normal,  are  really  victims  of  what 
might  be  termed  spiritual  traumatic  shock. 
There  are  subtle  inhibitions  of  the  moral  judg- 
ment and  motor  energies  and  something  very 
closely  analogous  to  amnesia.  Things  which 
seemed,  and  were,  of  vital  spiritual  sig- 
nificance before  the  war  are  no  longer  re- 
membered, except,  perhaps,  in  the  vague  and 
dim  way  that  incidents  of  childhood's  ex- 
perience dwell  like  faint  shadows  in  the  mem- 

121 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

ory  in  later  life.  Old  moral  and  spiritual 
habits  are  abandoned,  obliterated  as  by  some 
violent  injury.  The  spiritual  anchorages  have 
been  lost  and  the  souls  of  men  are  drifting. 

The  causes  are  very  easy  to  perceive  and  to 
enumerate.  They  are,  indeed,  so  obvious  that 
they  frequently  are  overlooked.  Let  us  con- 
sider some  of  the  salient  facts :  This  was  a  war 
of  peoples,  not  of  armies  merely.  The  armies 
themselves,  raised  by  conscriptions  in  most 
cases,  consisting  of  millions  of  men,  were 
representative  of  whole  populations  as  armies 
never  were  before.  These  men  had  been  torn 
from  their  families,  their  friends,  their  homes, 
their  customary  occupations,  by  the  coercive 
power  of  the  State,  and,  against  their  will,  in 
millions  of  instances,  compelled  to  become 
active  combatants  in  the  most  sanguinary  of 
all  wars.  Men  who  have  grown  up  in  a 
civilization  ordered  by  law  instead  of  brute 
force,  inured  to  the  disciplines  of  law-abiding 
communities,  trained  to  regard  human  life  as 
sacred,  to  submit  their  wrongs  to  judicial 
tribunals  for  redress,  have  been  massed  in  mil- 
lions in  a  great  contest  of  force.  They  have 
been  trained  to  hunt  and  kill  men,  to  use  every 
means  of  dealing  out  death  and  destruction. 

Whether  Prussian  hegemony  should  be  estab- 

122 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

lished  over  Europe,  or  whether  there  should 
be  a  free  confraternity  of  nations,  was  an  is- 
sue to  be  established,  not  by  reason  or  the 
principles  of  morality,  but  by  weight  of 
armaments  and  superiority  of  numbers.  In 
a  word,  mankind  went  back  to  its  primal  in- 
stincts and  its  primal  faith  in  force.  The  re- 
straints of  religion,  of  culture,  of  civil  law, 
were  torn  off,  like  the  thin  veneer  of  polish 
stripped  from  the  rough  and  inferior  wood 
which  it  hid  from  sight. 

These  millions  of  men  learned  to  regard 
death  as  trivial,  to  hold  human  life  as  of  small 
importance.  They  saw  men  die  by  thousands ; 
horrible  and  violent  death  came  to  friend  and 
foe  alike,  but  the  appalling  carnage  did  not 
stop  the  ghastly  game.  So  indifferent  to  death 
did  they  become  perforce  that  they  could 
walk  upon  corpses,  or  make  ramparts  of  them, 
and  regard  it  as  a  commonplace  thing.  To 
kill  masses  of  human  beings  like  themselves 
became  the  daily  task  of  armies,  to  be  ac- 
complished with  as  little  concern  as  though 
they  were  killing  pestiferous  insects  infesting 
an  orchard.  A  few  individuals  in  a  company 
or  a  regiment  might  be  inspired  and  sustained 
by  the  thought  of  serving  some  glorious  ideal, 
but  for  the  vast  majority  this  moral  passion 

123 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

did  not,  and  could  not,  exist.  The  grim  game 
of  slaughter  had  been  decided  upon  in  the 
chancelleries  and  they  were  forced  into  it. 

These  soldiers  have  learned  from  the  tragic 
experiences  forced  upon  them  to  disregard  in- 
dividual distinctions.  The  refinements  of  in- 
dividual culture,  and  even  of  character,  have 
ceased  to  hold  any  vital  significance  for  them. 
In  the  great  fray  only  courage  and  fearless- 
ness count  in  the  last  analysis.  These  qualities 
may  be  possessed  by  the  drunkard,  the  thief, 
the  illiterate  lout,  and  be  absent  from  the 
sober,  honest,  educated  citizen.  Bullets, 
shrapnel,  shell-fragments,  aerial  bombs, 
flames,  and  drifting  waves  of  poison  gas  are 
quite  void  of  discrimination.  They  kill  with 
equal  ease  and  impartiality  cook's  son  and 
duke's  son,  peasant  and  millionaire.  The 
trench  levels  all  to  a  primordial  equality.  In 
the  muck  and  the  mire  of  warfare,  away  from 
the  arrangements  of  civilization,  compelled  to 
live  in  very  primitive  ways,  men  soon  attain 
a  common  level  of  thought  and  of  habit.  They 
cease  to  be  individuals  and  become  a  mass 
with  a  mass  mind.  This  mass  mind  is  gen- 
erally lower  in  intelligence  and  culture,  and 
less  capable  of  fine  discrimination,  than  the 
average  individual  mind  in  the  mass.  Rarely 

124 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

indeed  is  it  higher,  and  then  only  under  the 
extraordinary  influence  of  some  dominant 
personality. 

The  necessities  of  modern  military  organ- 
ization tend  to  increase  this  leveling  process 
rather  than  to  check  it.  There  is  the  same 
need,  and  therefore  the  same  incentive,  to  care 
for  the  peasant  as  for  the  philosopher.  The 
sinner  is  as  valuable  as  the  saint.  The  values 
of  normal  civilized  life  disappear  to  a  very 
large  extent.  The  most  illiterate  boor  must 
be  protected  against  typhoid  equally  with  the 
most  cultured  man  in  the  ranks.  Hence  there 
is  uniformity  of  clothing,  equipment,  food, 
medical  supervision,  and  so  on  through  the 
whole  range  of  the  things  required  for  a  sim- 
ple but  quite  efficient  sort  of  life.  Thus  the 
conditions  of  life  in  modern  warfare  develop 
a  sort  of  communism,  which  a  brilliant  Rus- 
sian, C.  A.  Kovalsky,  has  aptly  termed 
"Trench  Communism." 

Parallel  to  the  disregard  of  human  life 
there  develops  an  equal  disregard  of  property 
and  its  rights.  In  war  areas  the  rights  of 
property  are  set  aside  and  sacrificed  to  mil- 
itary objectives.  Homes  and  possessions  are 
taken  for  the  use  of  troops.  Buildings  are  de- 
stroyed by  fire  or  by  explosives  whenever  this 

125 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

gives  a  better  range  for  artillery  fire  or  les- 
sens the  danger  of  harm  from  the  fire  of  the 
enemy.  Armies  indulge  in  pillage  not  only 
when  they  are  in  the  country  of  the  enemy, 
but  almost  equally  in  their  own  country.  The 
passage  of  an  army  in  war-time,  even  through 
its  own  country,  among  its  own  people,  is 
often  like  the  passage  of  great  hosts  of  de- 
vouring locusts  which  leave  the  fields  bare. 

After  being  subject  to  such  influences  as 
these  for  months,  and  even  for  years,  armies 
are  suddenly  demobilized.  Millions  of  men 
are  turned  back  into  civil  life  with  all  its 
restraints  and  conventions.  Is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  so  many  find  themselves  unable 
to  resume  normal  civil  life?  Is  there  any- 
thing strange  in  the  fact  that  such  periods  of 
readjustment  and  restoration  are  generally 
disturbed,  and  almost  invariably  characterized 
by  a  great  increase  of  crime,  especially  of 
crimes  against  life  and  property?  Quite  apart 
from  the  crimes  due  to  mental  derangements 
due  to  the  overstrain  of  war  life,  there  is  an 
appreciable  increase  in  the  crime  rate  which 
can  be  directly  laid  to  the  psychology  of  war. 

Take  men  who  have  gone  through  such  ex- 
periences— and  they  are  legion — and  consider 
how  Bolshevism  must  appear  to  them:  Its 

126 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

methods  are  undemocratic;  it  does  not  depend 
upon  the  decision  and  freely  expressed  will  of 
the  majority,  but  upon  the  decision  and  dar- 
ing of  a  few.  Shocking  as  this  may  seem  to 
the  law-abiding  citizen  with  his  growing  re- 
liance upon  democratic  methods,  to  the  sol- 
dier it  suggests  a  very  close  parallel  to  mil- 
itary methods.  War  is  decided  upon  by  the 
few  and  their  decision  is  imposed  by  force 
upon  the  many.  Bolshevism  is  brutal;  its 
leaders  have  not  hesitated  to  kill  many  hu- 
man beings  to  attain  their  ends.  In  this,  too, 
it  is  very  like  war  as  these  men  have  known 
it.  The  Bolsheviki  confiscate  property  and 
violate  property  rights  in  trying  to  carry  out 
their  program.  The  same  thing  takes  place 
in  every  great  war. 

Millions  of  men  who  have  gone  through  this 
war  have  been  made  practically  incapable  of 
feeling  moral  indignation  at  the  acts  of  the 
Bolsheviki  or  at  Bolsehvism.  If  millions  of 
lives  may  be  sacrificed,  whole  provinces  dev- 
astated, thousands  of  cities  and  villages 
ruined  and  laid  in  ruins  and  whole  popula- 
tions terrorized,  in  order  that  political  ends 
determined  upon  by  little  conclaves  of  states- 
men and  diplomats  may  be  attained,  why  be 
surprised  or  shocked  when  similar  evils  are 

127 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

wrought  by  men  whose  aim  is  so  much  greater, 
so  much  more  ambitious?  If  such  things 
are  condoned  when  the  object  desired  is  the 
preservation  of  the  existing  social  order,  with 
its  many  inequalities  and  shortcomings,  shall 
there  be  no  excuse,  no  condonation,  if  they  are 
done  by  men  whose  object  is  the  creation  of  a 
new  social  order,  free  from  poverty,  from 
exploitation  and  oppression?  This  is  the 
manner  of  reasoning  common  to  a  vast  num- 
ber of  men  who  have  had  their  whole  mental 
outlook  changed  by  their  experiences  in  the 
great  war  just  ended. 

That  a  certain  proportion  of  the  men  who 
have  served  in  the  various  armies  and  had 
their  lives  so  thoroughly  revolutionized  sur- 
render to  the  specious  propaganda  of  Bol- 
shevism ought  not  to  perplex  or  surprise  us. 
Instead  of  marveling  that  there  should  be  so 
many  of  them,  we  might  very  well  marvel 
that  there  are  not  many  more.  Yet  there  is 
danger  in  an  easy  complacence.  When  the 
house  is  afire  hysteria  and  complacence  are 
equally  dangerous,  because  they  each  make  ef- 
fective thought  and  action  difficult.  Serious 
students  of  the  social  problem  have  long 
known  that  a  great  war  would  bring  an  after- 
math of  revolutionary  unrest  fraught  with 

128 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

great  possibilities  of  danger.  Not  for  a  brief 
period,  but  for  many  years  to  come,  these  pos- 
sibilities of  danger  will  remain  and  must  be 
reckoned  with  by  governments.  Great  is  the 
responsibility  of  the  statesman  of  today  and 
tomorrow.  Men  who  shared  in  the  great  ad- 
venture and  fought  to  defeat  autocracy  and 
to  "make  the  world  safe  for  democracy"  will 
never  be  content  to  tolerate  autocracy  and 
despotism  in  industry.  Men  who  crossed  the 
haunted  seas,  defying  the  lurking  submarines; 
who  fought  side  by  side  with  men  of  many 
nations  in  the  far-flung  battle  lines  of  Europe; 
whose  eyes  beheld  the  air  above  them  trans- 
formed to  a  battlefield  and  who  have  bayonet- 
ed living  men,  will  not  shrink  from  the 
use  of  violence  in  order  to  secure  what 
they  believe  to  be  justice  for  themselves  and 
those  they  love.  No  sanctity  of  law  or  prop- 
erty rights  will  for  long  hold  such  men  under 
the  bondage  of  the  industrial  autocrat  or  the 
profiteer.  Negro  soldiers  who  fought  side  by 
side  with  white  comrades  against  white  foes, 
who  bore  their  equal  share  of  danger  and 
sacrifice,  will  not  be  content  to  remain  de- 
spised and  subject  to  race  discrimination  and 
prejudice. 

In  the  civilian  populations  of  the  belligerent 

129 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

nations  the  late  war  likewise  developed  a 
psychology  favorable  to  Bolshevism  and 
fraught  with  peril.  In  the  most  advanced 
countries  men  and  women  had  come  to  look 
upon  war  as  a  terrible  evil  belonging  to  a  less 
enlightened  age.  They  rejoiced  in  their  be- 
lief that,  thanks  to  the  internationalization  of 
commerce,  of  science,  of  religion,  and  to  the 
enormously  increased  cost  and  destructive- 
ness  of  modern  armaments,  great  wars  had 
been  impossible.  As  from  a  dream  they 
awoke  to  the  terrible  reality  of  a  world  aflame. 
They  saw  the  things  upon  which  their  faith 
was  based  swept  away  like  seared  leaves  be- 
fore a  gale.  Then,  after  a  brief  moment  of 
consternation  and  despair,  the  people  in  each 
of  these  countries,  acting  under  the  mighty 
impulse  of  a  common  ideal,  achieved  a  de- 
gree of  solidarity,  a  homogeneity  of  vision  and 
purpose,  such  as  only  the  Utopians  had  ever 
dared  forecast.  Thus  welded,  they  set  them- 
selves to  the  achievement  of  purposes  for 
which  no  price  seemed  too  high,  no  sacrifice 
too  great. 

In  each  of  these  nations  the  intellectual  elite 
consecrated  their  genius  to  the  creation  of  a 
propaganda  idealizing  the  war,  glorifying 
service  in  the  national  army  as  a  high  priv- 

130 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

ilege  and  honor,  proving  that  their  side  was 
one  hundred  per  cent  right  and  innocent  of 
wrong-doing  and  the  other  side  one  hundred 
per  cent  wrong  and  guilty — all  to  the  end  that 
the  national  morale  might  be  made  invincible. 
If  much  that  was  blatant,  crude,  vulgar,  and 
even  vicious,  appeared  as  patriotism,  so  too, 
on  the  other  hand,  did  the  noblest  and  best 
fruits  of  human  effort.  Something  like  a 
great,  genuine  religion  of  service  appeared. 
Men  and  women  put  luxury  aside  and  gloried 
in  privation.  Party  strife  was  hushed  and  a 
"sacred  union"  of  all  for  the  common  good 
was  born.  Men  and  women  forsook  idle  en- 
joyments and  worked  as  men  and  women  can 
only  work  under  the  urge  of  a  great  ideal.  In 
the  voluntary  organizations  for  war  service 
which  appeared  in  each  country  we  glimpsed 
the  almost  infinite  possibilities  of  human  fel- 
lowship in  labor  and  sacrifice.  The  proud 
and  the  humble,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  fa- 
mous and  the  obscure  all  came  together,  each 
serving  according  to  his  own  capacity.  And 
when  the  tidings  of  bereavement  came  there 
was  no  complaint.  Men  and  women  in  the 
presence  of  the  immeasurable  sorrow  of  the 
world  bore  the  burdens  of  individual  grief 
with  proud  fortitude. 

131 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

Under  this  psychological  influence  con- 
scription was  made  possible  in  countries  like 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  coun- 
tries whose  citizens  have  always  regarded  it 
with  repugnance  and  resisted  all  efforts  to 
fasten  the  system  upon  them  as  a  regular  in- 
stitution. War  entered  almost  every  home  in 
which  youth  dwelt.  Armies  sprang  up  out  of 
the  mines,  the  factories,  the  farms,  and  the 
schools.  The  great  and  complex  organization 
of  industry  was  quickly  diverted  from  the 
service  of  peace  to  the  service  of  war.  Fac- 
tories which  had  produced  tools  of  husbandry, 
and  even  toys  for  selfish  idle  men  and  wom- 
en, produced  guns  and  shells  to  blast  the  way 
for  the  armies  overseas.  The  greatest  leaders 
of  industry,  who  had  been  so  contemptuous 
of  government,  placed  their  gifts  of  knowl- 
edge and  skill  at  the  disposal  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  order  that  the  soldiers  fighting  at  the 
front  should  lack  nothing  that  the  national 
resources  made  possible.  The  most  cherished 
liberties  were  surrendered  with  quiet  resigna- 
tion because  the  military  experts  said  that  the 
sacrifice  was  necessary.  To  win  freedom  for 
democracy,  to  end  the  menace  of  autocracy, 
the  most  democratic  nations  laid  their  democ- 
racy aside  and  suffered  new  forms  of  bu- 
rn 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

reaucratic  despotism  to  be  imposed  upon 
them.  Individual  liberty  dwindled  until  it 
became  little  more  than  a  memory. 

Peace-loving  peoples  learned  to  hate  whole 
nations  and  to  gloat  over  the  tidings  of  great 
masses  of  slaughtered  foes.  The  civilian  came 
to  regard  life  as  lightly  as  the  soldier  in  the 
trenches.  When  the  individual  was  touched 
directly  by  the  loss  of  one  dearly  beloved,  he 
found  consolation  in  the  thought  that  the 
sacrifice  was  for  a  great  purpose.  When  the 
long  lists  of  names  of  killed  and  wounded 
men  filled  the  columns  of  the  newspapers, 
when  men  and  women  in  mourning  attire, 
and  broken  and  maimed  men  from  the  front 
filled  the  streets,  that  became  the  collective  at- 
titude :  the  sacrifice  was  justified  by  the  great 
end  to  be  attained.  For  the  attainment  of  that 
end  no  sacrifice  of  human  life  even  seemed  to 
be  too  great. 

It  became  the  idee  fixe  of  whole  peoples 
that  the  world  could  never  be  the  same  again; 
that  out  of  the  travail  and  agony  a  different 
sort  of  a  world  must  surely  rise  to  justify  the 
destruction  and  suffering.  Only  the  consola- 
tion of  that  faith  made  it  possible  to  bear  the 
heavy  burden  of  suffering  and  sorrow  which 
the  war  imposed  upon  them.  Just  as  the  be- 

10  133 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

lief  in  an  eternal  life  of  perfect  happiness  to 
come  has  made  it  possible  for  millions  of  hu- 
man beings  to  endure  lives  of  poverty  and 
suffering,  so  the  conviction  that  the  war  must 
lead  to  a  freer,  juster,  nobler  state  of  society 
made  it  possible  for  whole  peoples  to  live 
through  the  long  years  of  otherwise  unen- 
durable agony.  The  human  soul  needs  the 
strong  support  of  faith.  It  was  faith  that 
made  it  possible  for  the  war-weary  Titan, 
mankind,  to  stagger  on,  with  deaf  ears  and 
grief-dimmed  eyes,  passively  struggling 
toward  the  goal,  bearing  the  load  well-nigh 
too  heavy  to  be  borne.  A  spirit  of  Apocalyptic 
expectancy  became  almost  universal.  Men 
felt  that  great  changes  were  inevitable  and 
imminent — changes  commensurate  in  vast- 
ness  and  importance  with  the  war  and  its 
incalculable  cost  in  suffering.  Millions  of  hu- 
man beings  were  thus  psychologically  ready 
for  the  most  revolutionary  changes  in  society, 
and  ready,  too,  to  face  calmly  the  possibility 
that  these  changes  would  involve  a  relentless 
use  of  force  and  the  sacrifice  of  human  life. 
Millions  of  lives  had  been  destroyed  to  at- 
tain smaller  ends,  why,  therefore,  shrink  from 
the  sacrifice  of  hundreds  or  thousands  to  at- 
tain the  Earthly  Paradise  for  evermore,  free 

134 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

from  war,  from  poverty,  from  economic  op- 
pression? 

As  in  the  case  of  the  soldiers  from  the 
trenches,  a  greatly  preponderant  majority  re- 
tained sufficient  mental  balance  to  enable 
them  to  withstand  the  insidious  propaganda 
of  Bolshevism.  They  found  it  easier  to  be- 
lieve in  progress  through  the  orderly  develop- 
ment of  existing  democratic  instrumentalities 
than  through  a  violent  cataclysm.  With  the 
demobilization  of  the  armies  these  men  and 
women  have  demonstrated  that  healthy  nor- 
mality upon  which  democracy  must  always 
rely.  But  there  remains  a  great  mass  of  the 
less  well-balanced  to  imperil  the  whole  fabric 
of  society.  These  are  the  romanticists,  the 
hyper-emotionalists,  the  credulous,  and  those 
who  have  lost  faith  in  all  except  the  same 
brute  force  which  crushed  the  military  am- 
bitions of  Prussian  autocracy  by  overpower- 
ing militarism.  Surely,  the  obvious  concern 
of  sane  statesmanship,  and  of  intelligent 
citizenship,  should  be  so  to  manage  the  prob- 
lems arising  from  demobilization  and  read- 
justment as  to  strengthen  the  faith  of  the 
former  and  avoid  imposing  additional  stress 
upon  the  latter.  That  is  the  spirit  in  which 

135 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  situation  confronting  civilization  should 
be  faced. 

It  cannot  fairly  be  claimed  that  either  our 
own  Government  or  that  of  any  other  nation 
has  manifested  very  great  wisdom  or  courage 
in  meeting  the  challenge  inherent  in  the  new 
conditions.  The  world's  statesmen  have  sig- 
nally failed  to  comprehend  the  utter  in- 
adequacy of  old  theories  and  methods  to  meet 
the  new  order  of  things.  Thirty-five  millions 
of  men  were  under  arms,  it  is  estimated,  when 
the  Armistice  was  signed.  The  demobiliza- 
tion of  these  immense  armies,  and  of  the  mil- 
lions of  civilian  auxiliaries  to  them;  the 
wholly  changed  mentality  of  the  men,  many 
of  whom  find  in  the  homes  they  left  environ- 
ments no  longer  suitable;  the  friction  insep- 
arable from  the  process  of  turning  industry 
and  commerce  back  into  the  channels  of  peace 
— these  are  equivalent  to  bringing  immense 
masses  of  highly  inflammatory  materials  into 
the  very  heart  of  the  social  structure,  needing 
only  a  touch  from  the  torch  of  revolt  to  set  the 
whole  mass  aflame. 

Men  and  women  whose  minds  have  been 
prepared  by  their  experience  for  the  recep- 
tion of  Bolshevist  teachings  ought  not  to  be 
subjected  to  unnecessary  irritation.  It  is 

136 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

foolish  and  dangerous  to  continue  one  day 
longer  than  is  absolutely  necessary  the  ex- 
traordinary limitations  imposed  during  the 
war  upon  the  freedom  of  the  citizen  to  give 
full  expression  to  his  convictions  and  beliefs. 
It  is  foolish  and  dangerous  to  oppose  the 
universally  growing  demand  for  democratic 
control  of  industry.  It  is  foolish  and  danger- 
ous to  permit  profiteering  in  the  people's  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter.  All  these  things,  and 
worse,  have  been  taking  place  in  practically 
every  country,  including  our  own,  with  the 
result  that  Bolshevism  rages  like  a  forest  fire 
which  threatens  to  become  uncontrollable. 
And  the  statesmen  and  diplomats  of  the  world 
charged  with  the  great  task  of  making  peace, 
learning  nothing  from  the  past,  blind  to  the 
perils  of  the  present,  have  made  of  the  negotia- 
tions for  peace  an  irritant  as  dangerous  as  war 
itself.  They  have  delayed  the  comfort  and 
freedom  from  suspense  for  which  the  peoples 
of  many  nations  yearned  by  their  intrigues, 
their  higgling  and  haggling,  their  reckless 
passion  for  power. 

XVI 

In  order  to  combat  Bolshevism  and  kindred 
forms  of  social  unrest  and  revolt  with  success, 

137 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY 

it  is  necessary  at  the  very  outset  to  abandon 
all  thought  of  relying  upon  repressive  and 
punitive  measures.  If  social  revolt  could  be 
put  down  by  brute  force  Czarism  would  never 
have  been  overthrown.  Gallows,  firing  squad, 
underground  dungeon,  solitary  prison  cell, 
exile — these  and  every  other  form  of  re- 
pression and  terrorism  which  unscrupulous 
despotism  could  devise  were  used  by  the  gov- 
ernment of  Czar  Nicholas  II.  in  desperate 
but  vain  endeavor  to  crush  out  the  spirit  of 
revolt.  As  history  plainly  shows  all  who  have 
eyes  to  see,  repression  utterly  failed  to  accom- 
plish the  purposed  end  and  served  only  to  in- 
crease that  which  it  was  intended  to  destroy. 
Where  Czarism  failed  in  the  use  of  its  special 
and  chosen  weapons,  no  democratic  nation 
can  hope  to  succeed.  It  is  a  most  distressing 
circumstance  that  upon  every  hand  proposals 
are  made  to  inaugurate  a  great  campaign  of 
repression  to  the  end  that  Bolshevism  may  be 
destroyed.  Those  who  give  this  counsel  are 
more  dangerous  than  the  Bolsheviki  them- 
selves. The  maddest  of  mad  men  is  he  who 
proposes  to  establish  and  protest  Freedom  by 
means  of  the  instrumentalities  of  Tyranny. 
History  gives  us  counsel  if  we  will  but 


138 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

barken,  counsel  in  which  the  experience  of 
mankind  is  summarized  lor  our  guidance. 
And  this  is  the  counsel:  Bolshevism  cannot 
be  locked  within  prison  walls.  It  cannot  be 
burned  at  the  stake.  It  cannot  be  strangled 
upon  the  gallows.  It  cannot  be  exiled.  It 
cannot  be  beaten  with  clubs.  No  amount  of 
repressive  legislation  can  drive  it  out  of  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  men.  All  that  physical 
force  can  accomplish  is  to  drive  the  spirit 
of  revolt  into  subterranean,  secret  conspiratory 
channels.  Once  we  place  our  reliance  upon 
methods  of  force  to  rid  ourselves  of  Bol- 
shevism or  other  forms  of  social  revolt  we 
must  abandon  everything  that  distinguishes 
democratic  from  despotic  government.  We 
must  maintain  and  use  a  vast  secret  police  serv- 
ice, an  immense  army  of  spies;  domiciliary 
search  without  warrant  will  of  necessity  be- 
come a  regular  police  method;  agents 
provocateurs  will  become  a  terrible  menace. 
And  when  all  these  agencies  of  government  by 
repression  and  police  terrorism  have  been  es- 
tablished it  will  be  found  that  the  spirit  of 
social  revolt  flourishes  naturally  in  the  dark 
and  secret  channels  of  conspiracy,  like  those 
noisome  fungi  and  bacteria  which  flourish 


139 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

best  in  dark  and  dank  places  where  the  cleans- 
ing sunlight  never  penetrates. 

The  first  concern  of  a  democratic  nation  in 
dealing  with  social  discontent  and  revolt  must 
be  to  keep  the  agitation  in  the  open,  where  it 
can  be  seen  by  all  and  freely  discussed.  War 
is  an  exceptional,  wholly  abnormal,  condition 
of  life,  and  the  ordinary  principles  and 
methods  of  democratic  government  are  not 
applicable  to  it.  At  such  times,  propaganda 
may  be  the  most  dangerous  method  of  attack 
used  by  the  enemy,  as  the  Italian  debacle  at 
Caporetto  showed.  But  in  times  of  peace  the 
ways  of  democratic  government  are  safer  and 
more  effective  than  any  other.  The  most 
powerful  weapon  to  use  against  a  propaganda 
that  is  false  is  a  propaganda  that  is  true.  The 
lie  and  the  half-truth  are  best  opposed  by 
truth.  Bolshevist  ideas  cannot  be  beaten  out 
of  men's  heads  and  hearts,  but  they  can  be 
driven  out  by  democratic  ideas  that  are 
sound  and  true.  Ten  thousand  citizens 
equipped  with  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
subject  could,  by  a  counter-propaganda,  do 
more  to  check  Bolshevism  than  ten  times  as 
many  police  agents.  To  doubt  this  is  to  doubt 
the  validity  of  the  democratic  ideal. 

Discussion  is  not  enough,  however.  Merely 

140 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

to  make  the  nation  into  a  vast  forum  or  de- 
bating society  will  not  rid  us  of  Bolshevism. 
We  must  deal  with  the  problem  construc- 
tively, by  means  of  a  well  considered, 
comprehensive  program  of  reform.  We  must 
recognize  that  Bolshevism  springs  from  a  bit- 
ter sense  of  social  injustice  and  can  only  be  de- 
stroyed by  removing  that  sense.  Social  jus- 
tice, and  the  widely  diffused  consciousness  of 
its  reality,  alone  can  put  an  end  to  the  disease. 
The  theory  guiding  the  numerous  official  "in- 
vestigations" of  Bolshevism,  that  it  is  the 
product  of  the  guile  or  fanaticism  of  "ag- 
itators," is  at  once  very  pathetic  and  very  dan- 
gerous. The  cause  of  Bolshevism  lies,  not  in 
the  guile  or  fanaticism  of  agitators,  but  in  the 
harsh  experience  of  multitudes  of  people 
whose  spokesmen  the  agitators  become. 
Quinet,  that  able  historian  and  defender  of 
the  French  Revolution,  to  whom  we  owe  so 
much  of  our  knowledge  of  such  men  as 
Robespierre  and  Marat,  describes  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  latter  in  an  eloquent  passage 
which  applies  equally  to  Bolshevism  today: 

"It  was  a  voice  crying  from  the  underworld, 
the  piercing  cry  of  a  whole  world  of  torment. 
It  burst  from  the  bosom  of  the  past  thousand 
years'  slavery;  it  was  the  product  of  that  past 

141 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

— its  horrible  creature,  its  monster,  its  roar. 
Before  being  let  loose  on  the  world  it  was  for 
centuries  irritated,  prepared  for  fury,  as  bulls 
are  irritated  in  the  torturous  narrow  pen  be- 
fore being  let  out,  foaming  with  madness  in- 
to the  arena."* 

Our  task  is  to  uproot  the  wrongs  inherited 
from  the  past,  lest  the  hatred  born  of  those 
wrongs  engulf  and  destroy  not  the  wrongs 
alone  but  all  the  rich  heritage  of  good  be- 
queathed to  us  by  that  same  past.  And  we 
must  begin  by  making  government  truly  dem- 
ocratic and  quickly  responsive  to  the  people's 
will  freely  expressed.  The  autocratic, 
bureaucratic,  and  despotic  methods  imposed 
upon  us  by  the  exigiencies  of  war  must  be 
thrown  off,  and  the  sooner  this  is  done  the  bet- 
ter will  it  be  for  all.  There  must  be  a  more 
immediate  and  definite  responsibility  of  gov- 
ernment to  the  electorate.  Some  way  must 
be  found  to  make  the  heads  of  the  actual  gov- 
ernment of  the  country,  those  charged  with 
functions  of  vital  importance,  immediately 
answerable  to  the  elected  representatives  of 
the  people.  The  President's  Cabinet  ought  to 

*La  Revolution,  chap.  VIII. 

142 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

become  the  Cabinet  of  Congress  itself,  its 
members  being  elected  by  Congress  and  con- 
trolled by  it.  At  any  rate  every  member  of  the 
Cabinet  should  be  compelled  to  attend  cer- 
tain regular  sessions  of  Congress  and  be  sub- 
ject to  questioning  and  criticism  concerning 
the  administration  of  the  several  departments. 

Such  an  arrangement  would  act  as  a  safety 
valve.  It  would  make  it  possible  for  abuses 
to  be  quickly  brought  to  light  and  for  rem- 
edies to  be  quickly  applied.  If  the  Postmas- 
ter-General, for  example,  had  been  compelled 
to  attend  certain  regular  sittings  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  and  the  Senate  in  order 
that  he  might  be  questioned  concerning  the 
affairs  of  his  very  important  department,  it 
is  practically  certain  that  either  there  would 
have  been  a  very  much  more  satisfactory  ad- 
ministration of  the  postal  system  or  a  new 
Postmaster-General.  Nearly  forty  years  have 
elapsed  since  a  Congressional  Committee 
which  included  James  G.  Blaine,  John  J.  In- 
galls,  and  William  B.  Allison  unanimously 
reported  a  bill  embodying  this  reform,  but  we 
are  still  without  the  safety  valve. 

To  provide  some  method  whereby  griev- 
ances and  complaints  may  be  quickly  brought 
to  the  light  of  day  is  necessary  and  wise,  but 

143 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

it  is  necessary  to  go  much  deeper  than  that. 
We  must  eliminate  the  causes  of  unrest.  The 
wages  system  as  we  know  it  is  doomed:  it 
has  become  obsolete.  There  can  never  be 
freedom  from  industrial  revolt  so  long  as  the 
wages  of  the  workers  are  virtually  monopoly 
prices,  arbitrarily  fixed,  either  by  the  monop- 
oly of  labor-power  by  the  unions  or  the 
monopoly  of  jobs  by  the  employers.  Wages 
constitute  the  basis  of  existence  for  millions 
of  families.  The  whole  physical  and  moral 
well-being  of  society  is  at  stake.  A  difference 
in  the  wage-rate  reflects  itself  in  a  difference 
in  the  death  rate  and  in  the  crime  rate.  The 
black  tide  of  prostitution  rises  with  every  ma- 
terial decline  in  the  wage-rate,  as  thousands 
of  investigations  have  shown.  To  permit  a 
matter  so  vital  as  the  fixing  of  wages  to  be  de- 
pendent upon  accidental  circumstances,  such 
as  the  fluctuations  of  supply  and  demand,  or 
upon  the  monopoly  power  possessed  by  this 
or  the  other  group,  is  unscientific  and  provoc- 
ative of  dangerous  unrest. 

Wages  can  be  and  should  be  definitely  re- 
lated to  the  standard  of  living,  to  the  sum  of 
available  consumption  goods.  Every  human 
being  has  a  right  to  an  abundance  of  good 
food  and  good  clothing,  to  be  well  and  de- 

144 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

cently  housed,  to  be  well-educated  and  to 
possess  leisure  for  recreation  and  enjoyment. 
These  are  the  minimum  necessities  of  the  nor- 
mal human  being,  and  failure  to  secure  them 
is  evidence  of  the  failure  of  the  individual  or 
of  society.  Because  it  is  not  possible  for  all 
human  beings  to  attain  them,  even  by  honest 
labor,  it  follows  that  we  have  to  do  with  fail- 
ure on  the  part  of  society.  No  wage,  what- 
ever its  amount  in  dollars  and  cents  may  be,  is 
a  just  or  fair  wage  which  does  not  make  it 
possible  for  the  wage-earner  to  obtain  these 
minimum  necessities  of  a  decent  human  ex- 
istence for  himself  and  for  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren. What  we  need,  then,  is  a  standard  of 
wages  bearing  a  definite  relation  to  the  cost 
of  the  things  which  go  to  make  up  the  eco- 
nomic basis  of  a  decent  and  wholesome  life. 
Wages  should  be  measured  by  purchasing 
power.  It  is  time  to  end  the  mockery  of 
"high  wages"  with  low  purchasing  power,  ex- 
pecting the  workers  to  be  satisfied  with  money 
increases  which  possess  power  only  to  pur- 
chase a  decreased  amount  of  commodities. 
Wages  ought  to  be  measured  by  commodity 
prices,  the  norm  being  the  "index  figure"  of 
the  combined  prices  of  a  representative  num- 
ber of  staple  and  necessary  commodities.  Then 

145 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

wages  would  advance  as  prices  advanced,  fall- 
ing again  if  prices  fell. 

The  old  term  "a  fair  wage,"  so  much  used 
by  economists  and  social  reformers,  was  never 
very  clearly  defined.  It  is  now  coming  to 
have  a  very  definite  meaning.  The  only  fair 
wage  is  that  wage  which  enables  the  worker 
to  obtain  for  himself  and  his  family,  first,  all 
the  requisites  of  a  sound,  healthy,  physical 
life.  These  include,  abundant,  wholesome 
food,  good  clothing,  and  good  housing.  Sec- 
ondly, it  must  enable  the  worker  to  obtain  for 
himself  and  for  his  family  every  educational 
and  cultural  advantage  essential  to  high  men- 
tal and  moral  development.  There  must  be 
equality  of  opportunity  for  every  child. 

It  is  the  task  of  the  State  to  see  that  there 
is  employment  for  every  worker  at  work  that 
is  in  itself  worthy  and  not  degrading,  under 
conditions  which  are  not  needlessly  exhaust- 
ing or  injurious  to  health,  for  recompense 
which  will  make  it  possible  for  the  workers 
and  their  families  to  attain  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  efficiency.  Any  State  which  fails 
in  the  discharge  of  this  duty  will  be  menaced, 
sooner  or  later,  by  an  uprising  of  the  victims 
of  its  neglect  and  failure.  Housing  is  too 
vitally  connected  with  physical  and  moral 

146 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

health  to  justify  leaving  it  to  private  enter- 
prise. The  alarming  shortage  of  dwellings 
which  are  at  once  fit  for  habitation  and  to  be 
had  at  rentals  which  wage-earners  can  pay  is 
a  very  grave  problem.  Over-crowding  is  an 
increasing  evil,  and  there  is  abundant  evidence 
that  over-crowding  inevitably  leads  to  in- 
creased disease,  vice,  and  crime.  Perhaps  no 
other  single  evil  is  so  prolific  a  breeder  of 
social  despair.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any- 
thing less  than  a  comprehensive  plan  financed 
by  the  Federal  Government  and  carried  out 
by  it  in  co-operation  with  the  municipalities 
can  meet  the  housing  problem  as  it  exists 
today. 

A  substantial  reduction  of  the  hours  of  la- 
bor is  necessary  in  a  majority  of  industrial 
occupations.  At  the  same  time,  there  must  be 
a  very  great  increase  in  production.  It  is  im- 
possible to  see  how  there  can  be  any  solution 
of  this  two-fold  problem  unless  and  until  the 
whole  management  of  industry  is  democ- 
ratized and  brought  under  the  direct  con- 
trol of  those  most  vitally  concerned,  the  pro- 
ducers and  the  consumers.  The  organization 
and  management  of  industry  by  capitalists, 
motived  solely  or  mainly  by  their  own  selfish 
interests,  modified  somewhat  by  the  power  of 

147 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  unions  of  the  wage-earners,  must  be  re- 
garded as  an  outgrown  condition  no  longer 
tolerable  or  desirable.  Syndicalism,  Bol- 
shevism and  Guild  Socialism  are  so  many 
manifestations  of  a  growing  determination  to 
place  industry  upon  a  totally  different  basis. 
We  cannot  contemplate  calmly  placing  the 
mines  in  the  sole  control  of  the  miners,  the 
railways  in  the  sole  control  of  the  railroad 
workers,  the  telegraphs  in  the  sole  control  of 
the  telegraphers,  and  so  on  through  the  whole 
fabric  of  industrial  society.  That  would  un- 
doubtedly lead  to  evils  as  great  as,  if  not 
greater  than,  anything  we  have  known  hereto- 
fore. It  would  place  the  life  of  civilized  so- 
ciety under  the  control  of  a  very  small  part 
of  the  population,  a  certain  number  of  occu- 
pational groups  holding  peculiarly  strong 
strategic  positions.  But  we  may  contemplate 
with  perfect  equanimity  the  creation  of  joint 
boards,  consisting  of  representatives  of  labor, 
manual  and  managerial,  of  the  consumers  and 
of  the  State,  for  the  management  of  every  in- 
dustry. 

To  these  democratic  boards  of  management 
we  can  safely  trust,  if  to  anybody  at  all,  the 
regulation  of  such  matters  as  wages,  hours  of 
labor,  scientific  management,  technical  im- 

148 


OF   BOLSHEVISM 

provements,  the  development  of  industry,  and 
so  on.  They  might  very  well  function  in  co- 
operation with  Congress,  through  committees, 
and  aid  in  the  formulation  of  necessary  social 
legislation.  In  this  manner  would  be  over- 
come the  principal  objection  to  the  present 
system,  which  places  the  task  of  legislating 
upon  matters  requiring  a  great  deal  of  spe- 
cialized and  technical  knowledge  in  the  hands 
of  men  who  cannot  possess  that  knowledge, 
who  are  elected  solely  because  they  live  in  a 
given  geographical  area  and  are  popular  with 
their  fellow  citizens  residing  in  that  area. 
We  should  benefit  by  the  element  of  wisdom 
in  Syndicalism  and  Bolshevism,  while  avoid- 
ing the  folly  and  the  peril. 

In  a  highly  developed  industrial  country 
like  the  United  States,  wonderfully  rich  in 
human  and  material  resources  as  it  is,  there 
need  not  be,  and  there  should  not  be,  a 
poverty  problem.  Poverty  and  all  the  evils 
that  flow  from  it  can  be  banished  from  our 
midst.  It  will  be  banished  from  our  midst  if 
we  unite  in  a  determined  effort  to  that  end 
with  the  same  degree  of  solidarity  we  man- 
ifested in  our  determination  to  win  the  war 
against  the  aggressive  militarism  which 
threatened  us  and  all  civilized  men.  We  can 

149 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY 

end  the  tragic  waste  of  life  evidenced  by  the 
excessive  mortality  of  infants  and  young  chil- 
dren in  the  homes  of  the  poorly  paid.  We  can 
put  an  end  to  the  physical  degradation  result- 
ing from  the  widespread  undernourishment 
of  children  of  school  age.  We  can  put  an  end 
to  the  great  mass  of  involuntary  poverty  re- 
sulting from  sickness,  industrial  accidents, 
and  old  age.  Much  of  the  sickness  and  an  al- 
most incredible  proportion  of  industrial  ac- 
cidents are  preventable  and  should  be  pre- 
vented. Against  the  remainder,  as  against  old 
age,  every  member  of  society  should  be  in- 
sured by  the  State. 

A  nation  which  has  banished  poverty  and 
its  associated  evils  from  its  midst,  and  has 
brought  its  economic  life  under  democratic 
control,  will  have  no  need  to  fear  Bolshevism 
or  any  other  form  of  social  revolt.  Of  course 
there  will  always  be  discontent  as  long  as  hu- 
man nature  remains  imperfect  and  fallible, 
but  the  discontent  possible  in  such  a  nation 
will  be  the  healthy  discontent  that  is  essential 
and  prerequisite  to  progress,  not  the  discontent 
of  despairing  revolt. 

THE  END. 


ISO 


DATE  DUE 


WT 


JUN2 


19660 


GAYLORD 


PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     001  072  382     3 


